Wolf and Winter
by IronSaint98
Summary: Azeroth shakes to the drums of war and the tramp of booted feet marching to their deaths. Caught in the midst of a deal between his patron god and the Changer of Ways one Templar must carve out a place to call his own among the people of a world that could not have been any different from his own. Yet when the wolves of Ulric howl he answers, for he is Winter and War incarnate.
1. Curse of the Wolf

Curse of the Wolf

The brilliant light left in the wake of the Tzeentch worshipper's spell leaves spots swimming across Ragnar's vision as he slowly rises from his position against the wall. His dented breastplate presses against his chest restricting his breath, but he ignores it. All of his hatred, all of his _fury_ fuels him as he reaches for the haft of his trusty hammer. The massive weapon of steel and oak scrapes against the tomb's cracked floor as he leans his weight against it like a crutch to rise to a standing position. The howls and grunts of his brothers banish his pain at with an icy burst of energy and he raises his eyes to take in the sight of the battlefield. What remains of the heretic cult battles his brothers in a vicious melee at the other end of the tomb chamber clad in a ragged assortment of armor and tattered clothes and armed with rusting swords and crude hammers of stone lashed to sticks with lengths of leather.

Madness glows in all of their eyes, their voices screaming the praises of their new master even as the hammers of the wolves crush them into paste. The statues of long dead heroes stare down at them with cold eyes of stone helpless to aid their fellows in halting the foul ritual occurring beneath them. The tomb shakes in tune to the words spoken by the sorcerer atop the stone plinth where once a hero's remains rested. The Knight of the White Wolf snarls savagely as he advances hefting his hammer to one broad shoulder without effort. The weapon's steel head is worked into the shape of a snarling wolf, the jaws forming the striking face and small pieces of gold forming the eyes. A wicked spike juts from the rear of the head obviously meant to pierce plate armor and reak terrible havoc on flesh and bone.

His black lacquered plate armor clanks with every step he takes up the stairs, teeth grit against the pain of the cracked ribs. His grey eyes remain fixed on the sorcerer who is in turn engrossed in his foul ritual. The Winds of Magic whip about the two humans, all eight Winds harnessed at once in an arrogant attempt at ascension. The Wolf pushes through the whipping wind created by the magic with his unbound copper hair whipping about his head like a halo. Several mutants screech as they charge to stop the Templar's path.

"Ulric take you!" he roars taking up his hammer in both hands. The heavy weapon moves too fast to be seen as it first pulps the leading mutant's skull and then shatters the ribs of the second in a single crushing blow that tosses the corpse a good five paces. The young man swallows the pain flaring along his ribs and continues to advance. A blade appears from nowhere and rams itself into the gap between plates protecting his leg. The chainmail stops the blade from piercing too deeply but it still hurts and still bleeds. The White Wolf howls his rage and delivers a back handed strike that shatters the offending cultist's sword arm below the shoulder. The creature squeals in pain before the hammer loops back around and pulverises its throat choking it off.

The Templar bites back a shout of pain, reducing it to a mere grunt of discomfort, as he yanks the dagger from his flesh and tosses it aside. Blood flows freely from the wound but he ignores it, taking the limp the wound creates in stride. Step by agonizing step he approaches the sorcerer still unnoticed by his prey. His skin itches under the corrupting touch of the Winds yet he remains untainted if only because of his faith. Invisible weights bear down on his shoulders as he takes those final steps to bring his hammer within reach of the heretic's head. His eyes are colder than the snows of the highest peak in winter judging the heretic and traitor before him, and finding him wanting.

Voices of demons whisper temptation in his ears promising him the strength of ten men for his soul. Others babble in obscene tongues trying to drive him into waiting embrace of insanity. Yet more clamor for the substance of his soul in exchange for unthinkable pleasures...all are denied. The icy winds of winter blow through him and the fury of a wolf burns in his breast. He sets his feet as was drilled into his bones throughout training and raises his warhammer, twisting his torso to gain the power to shatter whatever enchantments might enshroud the sorcerer. The hammer starts forward, inexorable in its path towards the Tzeentch worshipper's tattooed skull. The sickly creature doesn't react when the hammer shatters a ward and continues on uninterrupted.

Blood and brain matter spray through the air as the hammer pulverizes flesh and bone with ease. The unbound magic surges into a portal, a vent of raw Chaos energies. Ragnar has but a moment to look his foster father in the eyes and smile warmly before the portal consumes him whole.

* * *

Ulric the god of Winter, War, and Wolves bats away a reaching claw. The old god snarls savagely at the offending creature exposing his shining white canines and chasing them back. The mighty axe in his hand shines hungrily as the wolves around him howl their joy at the great hunt underway. A single mote of light floats through the chaotic maelstrom of this damned realm, a single soul set adrift when it should be within his halls. The god reaches for the soul only for dark laughter to erupt around him.

"Begone Changeling! I have his soul by rights!" the old god roars. A shifting blob takes a vague shape before him. Around the two deities wolves and horrors battle in a great ball of flashing teeth, fangs and claws. The shifting colors of the realm of Chaos would have driven any mortal insane yet the two deities are unbothered, distracted as they are by their struggle over this soul.

"You have no true power here old one," the shifting shape retorts in a billion voices and a million inflections.

"He is a part of me, you know this."

" _I_ have seen this one's future. All of fate's paths are split evenly to this one. For every salvation there is a doom. For every heroic sacrifice there is a heinous betrayal. I propose an alternative."

"What do you care of one mortal's fate Changer? You would end the world for your own amusement yet would deny a single soul the rest he craves after suffering through your schemes?"

"It is _because_ of this soul undoing so many of my schemes that I have taken an interest. His every breath is a plan undone by a swing of a hammer, his eyes see through my minions plots as if they were sent to him by letter! I _need_ him gone, and for that... I shall make a deal."

"Oh?" the wolf god says arching one busy white brow and grasping his axe in both hands. The Changer's word is worth nothing to mortals, after all what is the power of a man before a god's? Yet for a god to exert his will he must use mortals, the fallible short lived vessels that they are. But when gods make an oath, even one as dark as the Changer, there are consequences. A deal between divines is something to be considered carefully.

"There is a place where the last of our forebears' creations resides, the last mark of his scheme… a place under threat of demons of a different kind. A weaker kind if still a challenge for a mortal."

"I'm listening…"

* * *

Sheets of rain hammer Duskhaven through the night perfectly expressing the despair bearing down on the people sheltered within its walls. Hundreds of refugees flow down the road, pitching patched tents or huddling beneath blankets in the shadow of the coastal pines. Guardsmen in their soaked tabards and battered armor try and keep order while fighting off the same exhaustion that has plagued them for the last week. King Genn Greymane oversees it all feeling the despair settling into his bones at the sight of his countrymen reduced to wandering vagrants by the flea bitten mongrel tide. So many have already become like the very beasts that drove them from their homes while the alchemists have just begun to create a potion that might keep them sane.

"How much is already lost…?" he wonders aloud, fist tightening around the grip of his longsword.

"Too much your grace," Lord Crowley mutters beside him. The king glances at his companion's rifle wondering how many of his former subjects have been on the wrong end of that weapon. And how many more must be put down before it is all over. Scowl fixed in place beneath his well trimmed mustache the aging king turns on his heel and retreats within the largest Inn within the town. The tavern's interior reflects the cheery if rustic nature of the fishing hamlet: trophies, mounts and paintings adorn the stone walls. A trio of oak logs burn cheerily in the hearth heating both the room and the bowl of stew tended by the tavern's owner.

When he first stepped through the doorway the owner was falling over herself to offer her hospitality to him, until the refugees started to pour in and reality sunk in. Now her once energetic smile is weighed down by several days without sleep and the stress of knowing that her people are on the run. The mages, herbalists and healers have been working overtime to heal the mundane and infected wounds incurred throughout the flight from the city, and it has started to show in their postures and slightly slurred words. The Royal Alchemist and his apprentices are working overtime in an attempt to synthesize a cure for the madness consuming the Worgen that were once their countrymen.

Lord Godfrey is of the opinion to just shoot any of them that they find in the various traps constructed in the countryside. The only iteration of the cure that they have found to work is a temporary solution at best, and useless at worst because it only reliably works on those recently infected.

"How could this have happened…" the King wonders aloud and not for the first time.

"You could never have predicted this, no amount of preparation or fortification could of held them off for any longer than what we had did. The men fought and died bravely—"

"I know that Godfrey!" the king cuts off with a snarl.

"I just wish...my people didn't have to suffer such loss." Lord Godfrey merely grunts and hefts his rifle peering through one rain soaked window.

"It could be worse my King."

* * *

The people of Gilneas trudging down the road are startled by a sudden cold-hot wave of energy. Cries of alarm are sent through the column and soldiers in the soaked and torn tabards of the city's guard appear from within the crowd. Their heater shields form a solid wall between them and the swirling portal of raw mana that suddenly appeared beside the road. Hoarfrost creeps outwards from the portal, the few mages and paladins within the ranks of refugees shiver in sheer dread at the feeling of the... _wrongness_ emitted by the unstable portal. What rain falls near to the portal is flash frozen into pearly balls of ice or evaporated entirely without rhyme or reason.

Whispers emanate from the dancing shadows around the portal taunting all with promises of power and pleasure beyond imaging and in that one single moment all are tempted. Paladins reach out and touch the Light fortifying themselves in their faith and hefting their hammers to ward off the demons thrashing on the other side of the portal. The less zealous soldiers of Gilneas and the few adventurers among them shrink back in fear unconsciously, their fingers gripping their weapons so hard that they begin to ache. And then the portal spits a single figure out from within that maddening maelstrom before collapsing without a sound. More whispers spread through the ranks at the sight of the clearly battered young warrior swaying in front of them.

The soldiers tense taking in his finely wrought plate armor and the bloodstained hammer clasped in his hands. Massive arms encased in steel plate and chainmail seem to be strong enough to crush stone are attached to broad shoulders. A short beard with a pair of braids running down either side of his mouth covers a jaw strong enough to forge iron on. Long copper hair cascades to just past his shoulders, matted in places by blood and other unspeakable substances. His grey eyes are glazed over in pain and confusion while he sways drunkenly. Great heaving breaths rattle from his chest for a moment before he speaks.

"Ulric's breath…" Then he falls in a jingling, clanking heap of steel. Nobody moves for several seconds until a pair of kind hearted mages, with more good intentions than brains, surge forward and begin tending to him completely ignoring the warnings of the soldiers. King Greymane doesn't get much sleep that night.


	2. Wolves and the Dead

Wolves and the Dead

King Genn Greymane frowns, an expression that seems to be permanently fixed to his face these days, as he examines the young man that "popped out of a portal to the Nether Realms." His men brought the unconscious form of the warrior into one of the houses nearest the stockade where the untreated Worgen are kept under close observation by the Royal Alchemist and company. The pair of guards posted within the room eye the comatose form warily. Their hands never stray from the hilts of their blades and they never relax around the strange man kept in a magically induced coma. The healers were shocked to find the extent of the damage done to the young man's body beneath the layers of armor, leather, and fur.

Four broken ribs, a pierced lung, severe bruising throughout the torso that should have been enough to reduce the man to a coma all on its own. The number of scars covering his body is...impressive to say the least for one so young, yet the healers could not help but feel their hearts ache at the sight of the lashes that criss-cross his back from shoulder to hip. A swollen, puckered scar sits in the center of his guts where a spear of some kind ran him through judging by the matching mark on his back, and numerous claw and blade marks decorate his pale flesh in a macabre skull pattern. His face, weathered as it is and covered in a wild beard, is at peace for now though he has been told that he was thrashing about and muttering in his sleep while they were binding and healing his wounds.

"Who is he?" That is what everyone is wondering. Everything about the stranger relates to wolves in some way shape or form: from the head of his hammer being shaped into that of a snarling wolf muzzle, the symbol of the pendant hanging about his neck, or his tastefully wrought pauldrons in the shape of wolves baring their teeth to either side of his head. With a soft grunt of frustration the King turns from the comatose man resolving to find out everything about him at the soonest possible moment. Even with his enhanced senses he has no way of knowing what is to come.

* * *

On the open ocean a duo of sinister shapes glide across the stormy seas. Tattered sails swell with the wind conjured by their passengers' fell magic carrying on the ships of petrified wood and cracked, stained glass. Rot seems to surround the ships. A rot so potent as to repel even the most brazen of the carrion birds. The frayed ropes that make up the rigging are tended by the origins of such rot. Of all the plagues that have been borne by the people and creatures of Azeroth the curse of undeath is the most reviled. In life proud and noble people would be shining paragons of what their people should aspire to be are stripped bare of all that they once were.

Supple and soft skin rots and turns pallid exposing the pale, cracked bone beneath. Hair that was once silken and shining and full is reduced to straggly clumps that cling stubbornly to the skulls of the shambling horrors. Once bright and intelligent eyes are glazed over and pained, nearly glowing with their hate of the world that has denied them. Cruel, and rusting but still weapons are clutched in near skeletal hands. Scrapped together armor and cloth protects their rotting bodies and preserves what dignity they have left. The holds echo with the pathetic yet spine chilling moans of yet more of their debased kin. The "living" catapults snarl quietly in the gloom beneath the decks just waiting for their masters to direct them towards the enemy and allow them to fling death and Blight.

The two who are called to captain these vessels of rot stand at the helm dressed in the tattered attire of what was once officers in the Alliance Navy, now proudly sporting the heraldry and pins of the Horde. In the far distance, through the sheets of rain and whipping winds is a small town and the remains of a people cast from their homes.

"Oh, this is gonna be good…" one of the captains whispers to himself, pale lips peeling back to reveal what few rotting teeth his mouth still possess in a macabre impression of a smile.

* * *

James shivers as the rain water finally finds its way through his oil-skin cloak and beneath the mail and plate that protects him. Being on guard duty in the middle of a rain storm was not what he had in mind when he joined the Royal Army. He dreamed of leading armies across the Badlands and driving the Horde back through the Dark Portal, of slaying Deathwing and getting the girl at the end of a tough journey. Not, shivering in the rain and wind after seeing Gilneas overrun by the rapid Worgen. Another shiver of a different nature races down his spine at the memory of the terrible claws and jaws of the monsters that lay his city low. A half an hour ago some alchemist set a crate beside him to go for a cart to carry it the rest of the way up the slope. He still hasn't come back and James suspects that the weasley bastard is warming himself by the fire in the inn.

So distracted is he by the thoughts of getting his vengeance on the willowy academic that he does not notice the two massive shadowy ships gliding into place at the end of the peer. The mists clinging to the two vessels wrap around them in a seamless cloak obscuring them from sight while their grizzly cargo unloads itself. For James, the horror of the next few hours is a thing of myth. He never sees the dessicated near skeletal form creeping through the tall grass behind him...or smells the rot of its flesh.

* * *

The first that the people of Duskhaven and the refugees with them heard of the threat was when James' body was found by one of the newly restored Worgen. The town guard and every man and women who could bear arms immediately gathered at the edge of the town...but it was almost too late. The Forsaken, remnants of what was once Lordaeron, swarm from their ships in a tide of rotting flesh and flashing cleavers. Cannons roar in a deafening broadside that shatters several houses burying those within. Watchmen and soldiers swarm from the buildings to take cover behind the small elevated berms along the fence lines that run beside the roads. A few direct the people to evacuate once more, the few hours of sleep the latecomer managed to snatch up buoyed by the fear induced adrenaline rush of being near death once more.

While the camp is swiftly broken down once more the defenders stare down the onrushing Horde. Arrows with ragged fletching and javelins bearing chipped blades on their heads soar through the air and cause only superficial damage. But that was all they were planned to do after all. Every second the Gilneans spend cowering behind their berms is another second that the Forsaken are spared their deadly aim. Huntsmen and riflemen rise from their cover as one and take aim, firing in a single thunderous volley that wreathes the outskirt of Duskhaven in smoke. The effect is much more...tangible. Lead balls rip through the nonexistent armor protecting the undead, the impact tearing limbs from sockets and punching holes through the fleshier parts of bodies. Rotting flesh and bone shatters under the barrage yet few of the undead actually fall under the barrage. A few arrows and crossbow bolts smack among the attackers claiming a few more lives but the majority press forward. Two more volleys manage to thin the front ranks before the infantry charge from their shelter to meet the undead on open ground.

Voices rise in heroic battle cries, steel flashes as it rises and falls in deadly arcs. Worgen bound ahead of their human fellows, swords and teeth flashing and their fur matted down by the rain. They slam home first with bestial snarls and pained yelps escaping their muzzles to be heard over the crunch of steel and flesh. The human Gilneans follow soon afterwards swords stabbing and slashing with wild abandon, shields deflecting blows or driving forward to throw their foe off balance. Forsaken cleavers bury themselves deeply in steel rimmed shields and flesh and soon the rich soil of the slope is reduced to a muddy, bloody quagmire. Rain drives down around the two forces soaking them all to the bone and excabrating the stench of rot and excrement as the death toll rises.

The cannons cease firing as their forces are too close to the enemy and they do not have the elevation to strike at the refugee train fleeing down the mountain roads. The catapults however...they have the ability. Flaming balls of clay land in the town's street sending jagged shards flying through the air or slam into buildings punching holes through the wood and stone. Cries of fear and pain rend the air, torn free of the throats of those still within the town. Mages curse their enemy, swiftly packing away their supplies in enchanted bags or small pocket spaces before rushing to join the defense. For one young woman, an outcast one might say among her peers, she has one extra task.

* * *

Alera Blackmane mutters curses that would make a sailor blush under her breath as she shoves the last of her supply of powdered Peace Blossom into her enchanted sack. The young mage is the third daughter of a minor noble family and only had aspirations to open a small alchemy shop and tend to the sick and injured of Gilneas. The few combat spells that she learned were mandated by the King as a way to be sure of having a somewhat skilled corps of mages to call upon for their defense. Never did she think that the Greymane Wall would have fallen so quickly or that the oaths would be called upon at the same time. Her once vibrant blue and white robes are stained by blood and other less savory substances and the hems are tattered beyond repair. Slinging her pack ove her should she reaches for her staff only to suddenly remember something.

"Oh... _Light_ preserve me!" she curses and sprints upstairs to the room containing the strange man. The guards have already left to go fight, probably already dead by her estimation. The door groans open revealing the large man still laying on his back across the straw mattress...still missing his shirt. A blush creeps up her neck at the sight, but she swiftly pushes it aside in favor of wondering if she should awaken him. An unknown variable in an already unstable situation could be the doom of the rearguard and the people of Gilneas by extension. On the other hand...it is only one man.

"Fuck it, I'm not carrying his sorry carcass downstairs."

* * *

" _Stand strong men of the Empire!"_

" _For Ulric!" The sight before Ragnar is one that he has only seen twice before. At the gates of Middenheim, and when the Greenskins came from the mountains and the entire State army was mustered. Troops, banners, and warmachines stretch as far as the eye can see. Earthenworks created by the backbreaking labor of the engineers gives the guns an elevated position to pound the enemy over the heads of their own men. Handgunners form a deceptively thin line before the massed infantry, the first puffs of smoke indicating that they have already fired a volley. Spear and halberd regiments stand at the front to take the enemy charge on their longer weapons. Behind them are the brave regiments of swordsmen and Free Company that would plug the gaps that are sure to form._

 _Crossbows and huntsmen are behind them so that their simpler arms can simply arc their bolts over the massed infantry. Cannons and Hellblaster Volley Guns thunder over their heads punishing the Greenskins for every step that they take. The front ranks of Greenskins melt under the volley of handguns, but this merely drives them further into their frenzy. Robbed of his horse in an earlier skirmish Ragnar stands with a sword regiment, hands clenching and unclenching around the haft of his hammer. The handgunners run past, smoke still trailing from the muzzles of their weapons, scrambling for the highground of the earthworks._

 _The roar of the monsters slamming into the braced lines of polearms greets the Templar's ears like a fine ballad. He grins widely a savage joy brewing in his chest as the drums signal his regiment forward—_

" _Come on boy, we don't have much time!" the grizzled guard captain calls over his shoulder. The much younger Ragnar stumbles through the Drakwald after the torch bearing soldier not wanting the creatures in the shadows to drag him to his death like they did his family. Before long the two arrive at a camp with the standard of Middenland flying proudly. Soldiers in the blue and white uniform of the Count's army prepare for war between the identical tents. As they enter the largest tent to the sound of arguing men the boy catches a glimpse of five knights. None of them wear helms, preferring instead to let their long hair and beards feel the breeze. Their armor is thick and lacquered black with white wolf pelts draped about their shoulders. Mighty hammers are held in their hands, and if only for a moment he fancies he can hear the distant howling of a great wolf._

" _So...this is the pup that saw the One-Eye?"_

"— _rat has probably dug himself a few tunnels into the crypts. Luckily our friends from the mountains have sniffed them out. With luck we'll be back in Middenheim and sipping ale…"_

" _The monster ripped him in half!"_

" _Run! The vampire comes now—"_

"It would seem, I have chosen the right Wolf."

* * *

The last of the magic keeping the man asleep fades away and Alera can feel the drain on her power reserves. As the glow fades from the crystal atop her staff the man's eyes flutter open revealing the steel grey orbs. What shocks her the most is the near animalistic light in his gaze as he sits up, tilting his head to crack his thick neck with a chorus of pops. He rises from the bed, ears catching the tumult of battle through the thin walls and grins broadly. The mage shrinks back against the wall, blue eyes following his every move as he collects his hammer from where it leans against the dresser. While one of the guards that brought him and his gear in struggled to lift it the man before her lifts it as easy as she does a dagger. Bringing the hammer up to rest across one shoulder he turns to look Alera in the eye, pinning her in place like a hungry wolf to a frightened hair.

"My thanks for healing me...lady mage. Would you kindly explain to me why the song of battle is calling to me from just beyond these doors?" the man's voice is deep seeming to make the air around her vibrate and contains a harsh accent, as if Common wasn't the language of his birth. Alera can't respond, pinned as she is by his harsh gaze, and simply stares at him mouth slightly agape. The man huffs and mutters under his breath brushing past her towards the stairs. After a few deep breaths Alera finally regains her wits and realizes that her patient just walked out the door without a shirt on...into a warzone.

"He'll need his armor...or I can sell it when he dies," she reasons and sets her pack down again and takes up the first plates of steel from the pile.

* * *

Prince Liam Greymane curses as another Forsaken blade claims a watchman's life beside him, spraying the shirtless prince in hot blood. The rapier in his fist swiftly finds itself lodged in the walking corpse's eye and the brain behind that. The once-man hisses and slumps back finally and truly dead. Rifles crack through the rain claiming a few more lives, but the Forsaken that fall are swiftly replaced by yet more of the dead. In comparison the men and women of Gilneas are falling at an alarming rate with no reinforcements beyond the few mages that stayed behind. Spells add their elemental fury to the barrage of gunpowder and arrows helping to make the tide of undead manageable.

"Stand strong warriors of Gilneas!" the prince roars cocking his pistol and taking careful aim to obliterate a reaver's skull with a single shot. The body slumps down at the prince's feet opening the path for another to take its place. The shieldwall formed by the organized soldiers shoves forward exposing a dozen Forsaken to the probing blades of the more disciplined Gilneans. Worgen howl their battle lust as they batter, claw, and savage their way through mobs of the undead. Fangs and claws, after all, are just deadly as the sharpest blade against unarmored flesh. Some part of the Prince should be disturbed, disgusted even, with what has become of so many of his people. The rest can't help but feel pride for how they fight to keep their people safe in the face of death.

A flash of pain along his ribs stops him in his tracks as he looks down to see the wound that the Forsaken cleaver left between his ribs. He can taste the copper across his tongue telling him that the lung is damaged as he staggers back. The swirling chaos of the battle makes it so that his men can't see their prince fall and for that he is grateful, their spirit would break and they would be slaughtered if they had. As the walking corpse that ruined him, a shambling thing that was once a man with only half his jaw still attached and clad in Lordaeron steel, looms over his prone form something changes in the air. The fighters all stop to stare and the Worgen prick up their ears, eyes seeming to glow like winter snow in the sun. An abomination, one of three that managed to make it through the concentrated gunfire and wade into the Gilnean line, groans and slumps to the ground.

The horrific conglomeration of flesh is missing half of its skull and two of its arms, guts spilling from the ripped stitches along its swollen midsection. The man that appeared from the portal howls triumphantly sending shivers through the spines of the living as a freezing wind whips across the field. Copper hair plastered to his head and his grey eyes flashing with zeal he cuts an imposing figure. Hammer raised high, foe broken at his feet. The Worgen, in their beast form or not, howl in answer as he shouts a single sentence that would change the fate of Gilneas in the years to come.

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_


	3. Ulric's Will

Ulric's Will

The men of Gilneas stare at the figure with awe and admiration, not understanding a word he just said but feeling it all the same. A wind bearing all the fury of winter sweeps across the coast leeching the warmth from the living and bringing with it all the fear for the undead. The haunting howls of the Worgen bring out a primal fear in the hearts of men, memories ingrained into their blood surfacing unconsciously, of the wolves howling in the night and stealing away their cattle and lives. For the undead it stirs feelings once thought banished from them; a fear from the dark, and the teeth of predators...a fear of the wolves in the dark. In later days, the men and women who fought there would say that the young stranger's skin glowed with a pale light as that of moonlight reflecting off fresh snow.

To Ragnar of the White Wolf, it is a cry to battle that has echoed through the ages of the Empire since a time before Sigmar Heldenhammer was born. The first of the lesser Forsaken reavers to meet his hammer is turned into a projectile, his hammer crunching through fleshless ribs to toss the now truly dead corpse into the arms of his fellows bowling three more of them over in a tangle of limbs. Prince Liam Greymane grins savagely and raises his blade in the air for his men to see.

"Defenders of Duskhaven! Charge!" His troops answer him with a deafening roar surging forward with renewed strength to join their prince and the strange man. Ragnar's hammer is thunder given form claiming two or three walking corpses with each swing of his hammer. Oaths to Ulric spill from his lips with every breath as he drives deep into the ranks of the undead with a burning fury. The Worgen instinctively form a wedge with him at the tip, claws and blades cutting through the rotting flesh of their foes and driving them back through weight and zeal. The Prince falls back in the assault to observe the newcomer, instantly recognizing him as the man that appeared from the portal.

He waves off the healers that rush forward to inspect him for wounds idly noting that the blood covering his body is not his own. Liam's eyes follow the stranger as he smashes through another of the abominations with expert ease beyond that of most adventurers that have journeyed through his land. Each swing and block of the massive hammer is executed effortlessly and with precision, the hallmarks of a lifetime spent wielding the same weapon through dozens of life or death struggles and years of training. The fury with which he wages war shocks and galvanizes the Gilneans, driving them forward to victory against overwhelming numbers when just moments earlier they were a breath away from buckling. Now they encroach on the first of catapult clusters.

"What my father wouldn't have given to have a warrior like this two days ago…"

* * *

"Fangs of Ulric!" Ragnar bellows slamming the spike of his hammer into a corpse's skull before ripping it free to smash into another's skull. The head pops like an overripe fruit spraying rotten brain matter and bits of skull into the next one's face. The hammer comes up in a devastating blow that catches a third under the chin and tosses the ragged corpse several feet into the air to crash among the tightly pressed horde. Men and women surge around him driving elegant rapiers or broadswords into the undead with a savage fury of those wrongfully attacked.

Laughter booms from his chest as he smashes his way through the undead with great sweeps of his hammer. A cleaver rises to stop the relentless hunk of steel only to shatter into a dozen pieces under the brute force exerted by the snarling wolf head. The hammer continues on to crush through defending corpse's head down through his neck and into his body like driving a spike.

"Come shambling corpses! Face Ulric's wrath!" The hammer trails blood and bits of bone as it slams into another Forsaken's side shatter ribs and pulping the rotten organs within, disregarding the leather padding his torso entirely. The wolfmen howl around him as they savage the enemy with great sweeps of their powerful arms whether they bare steel or their god's given claws. Fiery zeal burns in his chest driving him to follow the wolves into the milling masses of the undead. Their screaming moans are music to his ears, beaten only by the savage howls of the wolves bounding alongside him.

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ he bellows again as he shoulder checks a corpse bearing a greatsword in clawed hands. His arms barely feel the strain as they bring the hammer around in a low arc that shatters the corpse's thigh, the surprisingly healthy bone snapping like a tree branch. The corpse gasps in surprise and falls to the ground without its support. A Gilnean rapier pierces its eye and brain as Ragnar steps past, hammer already slamming into the next abomination's arm at the elbow. Nerveless fingers drop the chain and hook and the creature's lumpy head moans in anger, the only sign of pain that it releases. Ragnar effortlessly dodges the axe that attempts to remove his head in retaliation, stepping around his larger foe before driving the spike mounted on top of his hammer's head into the back of the massive sewn-together creature's stumpy knee.

A third arm swings a bloodstained cleaver at his face narrowly missing his nose. Ragnar snarls in fury and swings his hammer with such force that it rips off smaller arm flinging it through the air so that the cleaver still clutched in its grip decapitates a Forsaken reaver several feet away. The abomination roars in pain and fury trying to turn and face its foe on one leg. A trio of firebolts slam into its side unbalancing it and bringing its head to just the right angle for Ragnar's hammer to pulverize its skull. The warrior in question glances up, over the heads of the men and women fighting alongside him, to see the same mage that woke him and presumably healed his wounds. A stiff nod of thanks is all that he offers, an ingrained distrust of mages and their ilk rearing its head. With an oath to Ulric he whirls around just in time to block a descending cleaver with the haft of his hammer and shove the shambling corpse back.

* * *

Thyala was once a beautiful Elf, a Ranger that kept the borders of Silvermoon safe, she fell in battle with the Scourge alongside her Queen and former Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner. Her hair was once a brilliant golden hew that made men her pawns and women envy her. Her bow once defended her people against the darkness that has ever encroached across Azeroth. Now, both are a corrupted black claiming lives in the name of the hatred borne by her Queen. Each time the ancient weapon sings a man dies. From atop her horse she has an unobstructed view of the battle pushing itself closer to the catapults which still have not moved. There's nowhere for them to move _to_.

The unexpected presence of the Worgen in the Gilnean ranks should have been off set at least partially by the element of surprise and their artillery support. But, with the ships unable to fire due to how close their own forces are to the enemy and the catapults about to be overrun, the attack has become an utter failure. Once sapphire eyes glow a furious crimson as they find the shirtless man with the hammer that lead the counter attack. That damned _savage_ with his hammer and wild hair is driving a wedge through the lines of the Forsaken, Worgen to either side widening the gap. Gunfire, noisy and imprecise, cracks out once more from the edges of the town cutting down a flanking force before it can pierce the side of the resurgent Gilneans.

With a savage snarl the Dark Ranger kicks her skeletal horse forward. The bounding movement of the horse beneath her hardly throws off her aim as each arrow still finds its mark in the warm flesh of the living. Her eyes find the hammer wielding man once more as he disassembles an abomination with impunity. Mage fire scorches the edge of her hair, the fireball carrying on to smash amongst a group of reavers with a blinding flash. Thyala ignores the phantom pain searing her undead flesh and instead focuses in on her prey. The iron shod hooves of her steed tramples those too slow to move out of the way, her bow strikes with deadly accuracy where ever she aims it. And through it all her prey is unaware of his doom approaching.

* * *

Alera Blackmane curses the exhaustion tugging at her limbs as she marshals her power for one more Firebolt into the abomination holding back a line of Gilneans. The spell leaps from her fingers like an eager puppy turning the rain to steam with its passage before striking the abomination along a line of stitches keep its left shoulder attached separating the limb and depriving it of an axe. Half a dozen broadswords bring the creature to its knees with ruthless efficiency clearing the path for a score more soldiers to assault the final lines around the cluster of catapults.

"How...many...more of them are there!?" she shouts aloud between gasps. A fellow mage merely gives her a grim smile and passes a mana-potion to her. The liquid burns a chilling path down her throat but revitalizes her power and she stands a little straighter.

"Mages! Focus you fire on the catapult clusters! Our people need the relief!" Prince Liam directs as he climbs the shallow slope leading to the group of spellcasters. Alera idly notes the Prince found a shirt and is mildly disappointed at being denied a view before shaking the thought off and focusing once more. Her eyes catch the speeding form of a Dark Ranger barreling through the forward lines and musters her power into a Fireball, nearly slamming it into the side of her target's face if the skeletal horse under her hadn't surged forward at the worst moment. She is slightly mollified at the sight of the fireball shredding a quartet of walking corpses...and then becomes infuriated with the undead _bitch_ when she takes aim at the hammer wielding man.

"Oh no you don't you rotting cu—"

* * *

Ragnar bellows his fury smashing what he assumes was a commander of some sort into the spiked wheel of a catapult with a sweep of his hammer. The corpse-man cries out in pain and rage until the hammer silences its with a blow to the face that shatters the front half of the skull.

"Come brothers and sister! Destroy these machines, and then on to the ship! Ulric is with us!" None of those present know who this Ulric is, or half of what the hammer wielding warrior is saying as he seems to be dropping in and out of using Common, but they do know that there is sense in what he says.

"Come on lads put your backs into it!" a man shouts putting his shoulder to the front of the catapult's skull-face and pushing. Three others join him in pushing while a fourth drives his sword through the operator's chest killing it. Slowly but surely the catapult begins to slide toward the lip of the rise and tilts over, crushing a handful of the undead that had been hemmed in against the small cliff face.

"Yes! That's the way lads! With me— argh!" pain blossoms along his upper arm nearly making him drop his hammer. His eyes widen at the sight of the black shafted arrow jutting from the meat of his arm, the broadhead jutting from the other side. He clenches his teeth against the pain and immediately finds the archer. What appears to be an undead Elf, if the long and pointy ears are to be believed, charges towards him and his small company on a skeletal horse. A flurry of arrows loosed at an inhuman pace slams into the men and women around him killing and maiming a dozen.

"Ulric!" Ragnar roars hefting his hammer as the final arrow leaves her bow and buries itself in a skin-changer's throat. The wolf in the shape of a man topples to the ground with a pitiful _yipe_! The dead Elf leaps from her steed with inhuman grace drawing a curved blade at the same time. Ragnar barely catches the blade's edge across the haft of his hammer and throws it to the side before swaying back to avoid the sharpened limb of the bow still clutched in her other hand screaming for his throat. Pain shoots up his left arm around the arrow still buried in his flesh but he merely growls and surges forward, hammer trailing water as it attempts to smash his attacker to bits.

Thyala chuckles, a haunting yet musical sound even in undeath, and lashes out with her blade and bow. Each strike is delivered with blinding speed and incredible strength beyond that of the living, every blow meant to kill or incapacitate. Ragnar doesn't flinch and changes his style from a wild and unpredictable flurry of steel and lashing fists, to the disciplined methods of his adopted Father. The steel-reinforced oak haft of the hammer catches and deflects each blow while he delivers quick yet easily controlled strikes with the head. Neither one backs down yet there could be only one outcome.

The wickedly curved blade finds its way through his guard seemingly without effort, carving small scratches into his muscular limbs and leaving his blood to trickle from the wounds and mix with the rain water. Pain flares along each and every cut making his body seem to be on fire. Yet he ignores it and simply swings harder, moves a little faster. The sinister smirk pulling at his foe's plump lips infuriates him yet he controls it, channeling that rage into a cold focus and driving her back with a series of wide swings. Too late she lunges forward thinking to take advantage of his "blinding" rage and "exhaustion". Her blade screams for his heart—

Dampened pain radiates from her wrist currently trapped in an iron grip. Ragnar mercilessly tightens his fist shattering the half-rotted bones of the wrist with ease forcing her nerve-deadened fingers to drop the sword. Keeping her anchored by the wrist he drives the spike jutting from the top of the hammer's head into her gut doubling her over and nicking the spine.

" _Ulric!"_ Rangar roars in victory as he swings his hammer in a deadly arc that slams into the Dark Ranger's chin and proceeds to rip her, now half-smashed, head from her neck. Cold, black blood sprays across Ragnar's face as the battered cranium soars through the air and lands before the reeling ranks of undead. The corpse of Thyala the Dark Ranger topples to the mud-soaked earth as the battlefield freezes in shock. Icy, grey eyes scan the faces of the dead and living. Broad shoulders heaving, wounds leaking crimson blood across his body, Ragnar smiles a cold _Ulrican_ smile: all teeth and savagery. A wolf's smile.

"In the name of Ulric...kill them all!" The Gilneans roar as one and surge forward, swords slashing and stabbing alongside the claws of the Worgen. The Forsaken, shaken as they are by the sight of one of their best slain in such a manner, stumble away from the resurgent living. Some make it to the ships only to see their pursuers following them with murderous intent. Catapults fling the Worgen through the air, reminding Ragnar of the Doom Divers used by the Greenskins only with less bloody results for the ones doing the flying. Ragnar sighs with a smile and sits down on the muddy knoll, enjoying the sight of the wolves slaughtering their attackers. It is only when he realizes that the vibrations running from the earth to his posterior is not a product of hallucinations brought on by blood loss that the smile disappears from his face.


	4. A Swim, A Ride, and Story

A Swim, Ride, and Story

Ragnar drags himself back onto the shoreline pushing the last of the living watchmen in front of him. The rain stopped halfway through the recovery efforts allowing the searchers some respite from nature's wrath. From what one of the Gilneans told him, in their strangely accented Reikspel, the fracture must have been the result of the Cataclysm. Apparently a massive fiery dragon known as _Deathwing,_ and doesn't that name just give him shivers of excitement, shook the world with his flight and destabilized the coast. The cannon fire from the Forsaken ships must have shattered whatever support remained and the rest is history. Dozens fell into the freezing waters, and after a few minutes to put the remaining undead reavers to rest recovery began.

Body after body is dragged to shore in a desperate bid to save as many of the castaways as they could before the still active undead and the freezing waters could. Now, half an hour later Ragnar drags himself towards an aid station. His body shakes with exhaustion and every part of him aches...nothing a horn of ale wouldn't fix. Somebody walking by presses a skin into his hands and after taking a sip he pulls a face.

"Wine…" he growls and hands the skin back. The young boy scrunches up his face in confusion at why somebody would hate wine...all of the adults like it after all.

"Do you have ale, boy?" the exhausted knight grumbles as he leans against a half-collapsed wall that used to be a farmhouse. The boy's face twists in confusion for a moment before he asks the one question that Ragnar dreaded to have to answer.

"What's ale?"

* * *

Liam looks up from bandaging a man's leg at the pained groan of the strange man farther down the new coastline. He can't help but smile as a few words of their conversation float towards him on the soft breeze now caressing the coastline as if in apology for the terrible weather of the last week. Apparently the stranger is looking for some strong drink after his hard work, something the dwarfs would be all too happy to reciprocate when they should meet them. The Gilnean Prince sighs taking in the shattered coast and people around him. While still a young man, just barely reaching his nineteenth year, he feels like a man who has seen sixty.

Places ache that he didn't know he had but he shoulders his pain and exhaustion, not letting his people see him starting to buckle under the strain as an unbroken example to follow.

"Does anybody have something stronger than sour grape juice!?" the strange man calls out prompting more than a few of the surrounding Gilneans to hand him their own skins. Accepting one from a Worgen with a nod he nocks back a sip and grins at the smokey taste and burn of the whiskey. The Prince stands tall and approaches the warrior, trying to put on the same mask that his father does when dealing with problematic lords, his anxiety growing ever so slightly when those icy grey eyes turn on him.

A hint of the zeal and fury he witnessed during the battle remains there. The man stands tall hefting the hammer that somehow appeared in his hand to rest it against his right shoulder, not aggressive but not relaxed either. The faint white scars left by the healing magic the young mage used on him remind the Prince of his strength. His ability to simply shrug off the pain that would have incapacitated men of lesser stock is nothing short of astounding. Liam glances at the Worgen lingering close to the strange man recalling their reaction to the mention of this man's god.

 _Ulric_. The very thought of the foreign deity's name sends a shiver down the young Prince's spine. Memories of the impressive savagery exhibited by both the Cursed and the man at the invocation of that god's name flash through his mind as he stares into those cold eyes. While not a short man by any means Liam still has to look up into this unknown man's eyes unable to shake the feeling of being judged by a wolf's gaze. Several guardsmen stiffen seeing their Prince approach the imposing man, hands straying to their swords as they watch carefully for the slightest sign of a threat.

Prince Liam Greymane comes to a stop, hand resting on the hilt of his rapier wishing dearly for his broadsword instead. The elegant blade, while fast and a fine weapon in its own right, would be woefully inadequate against the stranger's war hammer. His speed, strength, and obvious skill would result in the Prince's blade shattered like glass and his head pulped. Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat the Prince speaks.

"Who are you stranger?" The man smiles in response sending another uneasy shiver through the Prince though he doesn't show it. Teeth flash beneath the braided copper beard in a fanged grin giving the man a bestial appearance.

"I am Ragnar, of the Order of the White Wolf. Templar to the God of War, Winter, and Wolves. Who are you...little Prince?"

* * *

Queen Mia Greymane sighs taking in the assembled nobility within her manor. Greymane manor is a grand construction with stained glass windows casting their multi-colored light over the assembly. Candles in the chandelier and wall sconces put out a cheery light completely at odds with the grim mood. An aging woman, yet still beautiful, with laugh lines creasing her heart shaped face and long grey streaked hair that was mostly a raven black. She stands tall as if unpressured by the hardships assaulting her people in a white dress decorated with tiny pearls across her sleeves and the train of her dress. She smiles kindly and nods to each noble that comes to her expressing their concern for the fate of her son, knowing that they all wouldn't truly care if he was killed for that would mean that her daughter would be the path to the throne and a new Royal Family.

' _Jackals all of them,'_ she thinks to herself venomously while maintaining her delicate outer appearance as a mask. One doesn't rule a country all of their adult life without learning the Game the nobility so loves to play even in times of crisis as foolish as it is. The sounds of fighting receded when the ground shook and shattered under the wrath of the Cataclysm and still no runner carrying news on what happened. From the reports the majority of her people have escaped to the mountain passes but were stopped by ogres on the rocks above the road.

Her husband shut himself up in the observatory after dealing with the first frantic wave of the nobles leaving her to fend for herself as he is want to do. Needless to say, however, that she is relieved when the doors swing open on their oiled hinges and a pair of soaked guards escort in a strange man and a young mage. All conversation ceases taking in the towering form of the soaked man, a tattered vest draped over his shoulders to preserve some form of dignity. His bare arms are heavily muscled and scarred as evidence of a life as a fighter wielding a heavy weapon of some sort, a hammer if she guesses correctly. The man has a rugged, _wild_ , handsome look with his well trimmed and braided beard and long copper hair coupled with tanned skin and piercing grey eyes.

' _Keep Tess away from this one,'_ she thinks wryly before turning her gaze to the mage beside the warrior. The young woman has a soft kind of beauty about her with long black hair as the Queen had in her youth, and light blue eyes that analyze everything with a hunger for knowledge of a scholar. Her blue and white robes are a little worse for wear after the last few days and the Queen can sympathize, for if a mage's enchanted clothing could get that damaged then she must have had a particularly hard time of it. The guards escorting them, rather than the tense figures she would expect escorting such dangerous personages to their rulers, are relaxed as if this man was known to them.

Then again, the common people often know things before even the Royal Spymasters do so it would not be all that surprising if they did. Silently she takes in the whispers circulating through her hall, taking note of those who seem to be threatened by the new addition and the ones who seem the most intrigued. The rest is a mixture of confusion and some anger as if finding someone to blame all of their hardships on. The Queen shakes off her contemplation as one of the guards begins to speak.

"Your Grace, this is Lady Alera Blackmane who was instrumental in keeping the East Gate open during the escape from the city. And this is Ser Ragnar of the Knights of the White Wolf from a place called Middenheim in what he calls the Old World." The Queen arches a well manicured brow at the man's identity never suspecting that the man had been a knight. After all, what knightly order would allow their members to have such an unkempt appearance? The two individuals bow deeply, even the wild haired one, with a surprising grace as if both had been studying for such a thing all their lives.

As they straighten the Queen finds her eyes meeting those of the wild looking knight and freezes. A wolf's eyes stare back at her from a man's face pinning her to the steps and watching her every move for weakness. It feels wholly dissimilar to the gaze of even the Worgen that she has treated with since the crisis began and the cure was distributed, more wild and predatory as if seeing everyone as a frightened fawn cowering before his jaws. She tries to shove back the slight trickle of _fear_ running down her spine.

' _I am not prey!'_ she thinks to herself trying to force her decorum back into place. It's only when she realizes that almost a full minute has passed in silence that she manages to shake off the paralyzing _fear_ exuded by the man before her.

"Greetings both of you, and welcome in my home. You have _all_ of our gratitude for driving back the Forsaken and saving our brave warriors in the wake of the Cataclysm," Queen begins with a gracious bow that is neither too deep to seem subservient or too shallow to appear as an insult. It is a balance that must be perfected over the course of a lifetime of training and courtly intrigue, and partly responsible for the grey in her hair much to her frustration.

"It was our pleasure Your Grace," the man rumbles. His harsh accent is unfamiliar to the Queen who prides herself on treating with most every species and culture in the Alliance.

"I must confess sir, that I recognise either the order you claim to belong to or your accent. Lady Alera is known to me if only for the reputation of her master in dealing with the plague months ago but you are an unknown entity." The Queen attempts to fix him with her most stern gaze, the kind that has cowed brash nobles and broken through the barriers of reluctant trade guild-masters with ease. The supposed knight before her shows no reaction to it.

"Aye, you wouldn't Your Grace. From what has been told to me on the way here I'm far from the land of my birth."

"How did you arrive through that portal then, _sir_?" a noble, Lord Crinklemoore if memory serves, inquires arrogantly. His gaunt face is twisted in a sneer of pure derision and he spits the word 'sir' as if it were the foulest poison. An ambitious man who has caused more than a few problems in the past for legislation that benefits the common people and puts pressure on the nobility who can easiest bear it. Such is the way it has been for generations.

"My brothers and I were in the midst of battle against the servants of Tzeentch, the Changer of Way." A sinister chill fills the air around the congregation at the mention of that name. A sinister aura unfelt by any, beyond even that felt by the veterans of the battles against the Horde in the Second War, and in an instant it disappears leaving some in a cold sweat.

"And who is this... Changer of Ways good sir," another of the snivelling incompetents asks from the opposite side as Crinklemoore.

"One of the Four Gods of Chaos, the deity they associate with what they consider the blessings of mutation and sorceries most foul. His demons have tempted many a hedge mage or even graduate of the Colleges to the corrupting powers of Chaos and they make no distinction between innocent and guilty. All they care for is power, and change. My brothers and I tracked this Cult to an ancient cairn where a famed warrior of Sigmar's time was buried eons past. We cut through them and entered the crypt to confront the sorcerer and his closest companions. In the course of the battle I was...injured and seperated from my brothers. I killed the sorcerer as he began to cast a spell of some foul nature and when his control was lost it would seem I was sucked into the streams of Chaos and by Ulric's grace dumped on your doorstep Your Grace."

"Preposterous," a snide and extremely unwelcome voice scoffs from beside the steps. All eyes turn towards the owner of said voice: an aging man that must lean heavily on his staff. His back is bowed with age and his beard is long, ill kept, and grey to the point of being white. A thin jaw and nose coupled with his permanently squinty eyes after a failed experiment in his youth give him a pinched appearance. Robes of black trimmed with blue hang around his shoulders and rings of an obvious eldritch power decorate his fingers. Ragnar merely turns to glare at the newly arrived mage a sneer of such hatred twisting his lips that the young woman beside him shuffles to the side in discomfort. She knows who this is and groans internally, feeling a headache begin growing behind her eyes already.

"Yes Mister Vomeran?" the Queen says in the serene manner of one suppressing their annoyance. For this man is indeed...an asshole of impressive proportions. Enough so that his knowledge is so hesitantly called upon by the court that he takes any and all measure to be sure that they know how much smarter he is than any other in Gilneas. Even if it isn't true...in some areas.

"Magic can do many things my Queen but result in anything but death when interfered with. What spell was he trying to use hm? A simple firebolt? A transmutation? A creation? Don't know? Don't even bother answering I doubt you have the mental—"

The arrogant mage doesn't have the breath remaining to finish his sentence. Not because he ran out of it with his rant, the man is a noted windbag and can go on for hours without seeming to have taken a breath. No, he was silenced because a certain well grown Ulrican lost his temper and crossed the room in three quick stride. His fist closes around the mage's throat like a vice choking him off with an indignant _squawk!_ The angry templar snarls like the wolves of his god lifting the struggling mage off the floor with a single arm, the ornate staff that was clutched in his hands clattering to the floor.

"No you _insufferable imbecile!_ He was ripping a hole in the fabric of reality to unleash a horde of demons upon all of Middenheim and quicken the approach of the End Times! If he had succeeded all of our souls would have been _damned_ to the tender mercies of the denizens of the Chaos between worlds, Ulric's breath! _Archaon_ would have led the legions south and razed the Empire to the ground before marching on the rest of the world that we have safeguarded for thousands of years. The dwarves in their holds, the elves in the forests and on their islands, fair Bretonnia, rich Tilea... _all_ of it would have burned under their feet if _we_ had failed." The White Wolf turns crimson with his rage, the same voice that had shouted oaths and praise to his strange new god booming in his anger. The mage caught in his grip turns purple and then blue his legs shaking in the air as the fist tightens further.

None of the assembled nobles dare breath for fear of attracting that same wrath onto them, the instinct of avoiding a losing fight strong in their psyches. A soft hand lays itself on Ragnar's arm, a soft thing used more to the studies of a scholar than a warrior. The wild wolf's eyes turn to take in the female mage beside him, Alera's face set in a stern frown. She gently shakes her head and he nods releasing his grip on the now unconscious mage in his grip. Nobody breaks his fall and instead let him hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. The entirety of the room stares at him like deer in the headlights, fear oozing from them in waves. Ragnar merely takes a few steps back from the comatose mage and stares up at the Queen, his eyes dead and emotionless.

"Ser Ragnar, if you would join me in the observatory," a gruff voice used to command beckons from the top of the stairs behind the Queen. The templar's eyes are drawn to the imposing form of the man in his heavy coat and fine clothes. The hilt of a broadsword peaks from under the coat, a gloved hand resting on the pommel in a simple familiarity. A well trimmed goatee and mustache decorate his face and his hair is drawn back beneath a length of cloth, all grey like his house name suggests. His eyes, grey like Ragnar's, pierce the templar like bolts from a crossbow pinning him in place. King Genn Greymane, his piece said and will spoken, turns on his heel and disappears up the stairs without another word voiced.


	5. Flight of the Wolves

Flight of the Wolves

The observatory of the Greymane estate is a grand affair. The bronze dome is polished to an almost mirror sheen giving it the appearance of catching fire in the sun. A complicated series of winches and gears controls the panels that shut tight around the body of the massive far-eye that is the centerpiece of the tower. The far-eye itself is a massive construction of dwarfish make: a burnished copper plated steel and glass monstrosity that can bring the far off moons into sharp focus on cloudless nights...or the fleet of Forsaken warships sailing towards Duskhaven. The expensive glass lenses bring the warts and rotting flesh of the point ship's captain into focus for the King of Gilneas.

Disgust wells up in the monarch's chest. For decades he has defended his nation against all threats: weathering the Horde's onslaught, putting down the resurgence of the Naga in the west, and bringing attacks by other pests down to an all time low. To see these... _creatures_ stepping onto _his_ native soil boils his blood. His grip tightens on the far-eye as the Beast shifts beneath his skin.

' _No, not yet. I can't be seen as one of the same creatures that destroyed our home. My people need me...human,'_ Releasing his grip on the far-eye the monarch turns to regard the massive man behind him. King Genn is by no means a small man, possessing a stature that has bent politicians and belligerent nobles into shape through his mere presence more times than he can count. But this man before him towers over him by a head. His grey eyes are challenging yet not threatening as he waits silently for the King to speak, his stiff posture screaming military.

"I'm told that you led the counter assault that saved Duckhaven, and my son." The younger man doesn't react outwardly beyond nodding, evidently still fuming from his outburst earlier. The amount of anger and desperation in his voice as he berated one of the foremost minds on magic in Gilneas was...enlightening to say the least. The anger indicates a deep rooted value of camaraderie and duty, such as that between brothers, and reveals much of the man's character. Loyalty, duty, and honor: things that the King can sympathize with. The desperation tells of a people constantly under assault by forces that would see them ground down into dust or thrown into bondage. The light in the man's eyes as he held the wizard up singlehandedly was that of a man pushed close to the edge and barely holding it together.

"If these were normal times I would reward you and then send you on your way. However, these are not normal times and we cannot stand on ceremony. To put it bluntly we need every able arm that we can get before we can escape the Forsaken here and recapture our capital. I don't know where you come from, who you truly are, or even if you are a man of your word. I just need to know: will you help us?" The King's eyes soften at the end of his speech, an earnest plea for aid from one man to another. The knight stands a little taller looking the king in the eyes, and nods.

"We are all human, no matter the banner or the history we all bleed red. I will help you." The king nods and gestures to the far-eye stepping to the side.

"See what we face."

* * *

Alera Blackmane releases an unladylike curse from her lips as she hauls the broad breastplate free of her pack, the enchantments only lightening her load once the steel is _inside_ the inconspicuous cloth and leather construction. Outside it is still solid steel, if damaged, and her arms are unused to carrying something heavier than a tome. The steel plate drops to the pavestones of the courtyard with a hearty _clang_ attracting the attention of a few of the pages preparing the carriages for the nobles but a few barked orders and threats from the older valets brings them back to their tasks.

"The main issue seems to be the breastplate, there are numerous dents in the plate and it seems to be of dwarf make. I've never seen work so fine as this from even the Ironhammer dwarves though," she sighs glancing up from the pile of steel at the concerned face of the old smith that has served the Greymane family for most of his adult life. He caresses the long mustache that Gilneas favors and furrows bushy eyebrows every bit as grey as his liege lord's name.

"I can possibly pound out the dents, but mending that hole in the tasset is beyond me. I'm a farrier not an armourer."

"I understand that but he needs his armor. Only a barbarian would wade into a real battle without a shirt, I fear it might be too late to teach him civility but I can do modesty."

" _I heard that spell chucker!"_ the booming voice of the subject in question announces drawing every pair of eyes to the steps. Rangar strides into the courtyard with all the predatory grace of his Order's namesake, a fierce scowl fixed in place beneath his beard. Alera can't help the relieved sigh that escapes her at the sight of the hulking man being escorted by the same guardsmen that he was escorted into the mansion by.

"Good because we have little time and I don't want to have to be dragging around a deaf dollard with no sense of propriety." A flash of anger crosses his features but it is quickly masked by his general displeasure in mages. A far cry from what one would call religious zealotry, more of a distrust. She can work with distrust.

"Mage, one day I might have to crack your skull with my hammer and see just how big your brains are in that dainty head," the man mutters venomously. The mage huffs in response and returns her attention to the farrier who swiftly banishes the faint grin of amusement from his countenance.

"How long would it take to fix the plate?" the mage presses now losing patience with both males.

"A few hours work to get the dents pounded in so they don't press on his chest, and that's with a lit forge."

"What if we used a little magic fire?"

* * *

Rather like a child we find Ragnar pouting in the corner of the forge as the mage works with the blacksmith to pound out the dents in his armor. The argument moments before left a foul taste in his mouth, especially considering that he was defeated by unfortunately sound logic. One cannot go into battle without armor even one such as a White Wolf of Ulric and the easiest set to acquire is the same that he came through the portal with. So he grimly swallows his misgivings as the mage conjures flames to heat the metal and the farrier beats the dents out of the breastplate and hammers the jagged edges of the hole in the tassets flat.

His eyes never leave the hammer beating the bright hot metal into shape and he never flinches from it. Ever wary for the slightest hint of subterfuge on the part of the mage, like a proper Ulrican should. The Cult of Ulric is not big on flashy hammers and grand gestures as the Sigmarites, nor are they cold and calculating like the Generals and Captains that worship Myrmidia. Bombastic yes, but tempered by the blizzard of cold rage that swirls in their chest when faced with the forces of Chaos and the marauding Warherds and Greenskins.

The final bags are strapped to the carriages beyond the dark smithy just as the mage cools the metal one final time and the smith declares it fit for wear.

"Now, those spots might not be as strong as you're used to so don't surprised if they take a little more damage from anything that might get through and hit ya'. I've done the best I could but you'll need to find a good armorer when things settle down to get the metal set properly," the farrier reminds the Templar before departing to join his family on one of the middle wagons. Ragnar merely grunts and begins the arduous task of donning his armor. One of the stable boys, suddenly deprived of a task, helps him buckle the straps of the more obstinate pieces before joining the rest of the nobility on the carriages.

The knight clambers aboard a carriage and sighs, feeling whole within his armor once more. The wizened butler holding the leads nods to him as a porter takes up position atop the wagon with a blunderbuss cradled in his arms. A few nods are exchanged all around and the word is given for the train to begin moving. Steel encased wooden wheels rumble and iron shod hooves clack against the weather beaten cobblestones as the nobility and their retainers follow their people down the mountain roads.

* * *

"Ware ogres!" The frightened cry shocks Ragnar back to full awareness as a boulder soars over the carriage just ahead of him. The massive stone is as large as he is and was tossed with a good deal of force. The crack of black powder weapons and cries of fear merely reinforce the fact that they are under attack. The carriages speed up careening down the sloping road like things possessed. Ragnar curses violently and grips his hammer and the seat of the carriage tightly. A colossal form rises from a rock formation on the right the silhouette of a boulder hefted in one massive hand.

A crack of thunder from the man on top of the carriage's gun sends the form tumbling back behind the rocks before the Templar can recognize the shape. The next attacker however...he is quite a bit more obvious. Standing half again taller than any man and possessing muscles strong enough to heave boulders through the air as easily as a man does a pebble. Primitive tattoos swirl in confusing patterns across the tanned hide and a pair of small eyes set over a pair of massive tusks glare at the convoy. Bullets smack into the sheer cliff face behind the ogre making it roar in fury and annoyance at the stinging shards of stone bouncing off its skin. The boulder in its hand smashes into the carriage in front of ragnar's with a resounding _crash_ of splintering wood.

The carriage tips over spilling the gunner and driver from their perches and snapping the leads releasing the powerful mountain horses from their harnesses. The carriages behind it must slow or risk joining the wreck, Ragnar's included. The White Wolf, rather than remaining on the carriage as he probably should, demonstrates the brash nature of his Order for all the nobility to see when he leaps from the seat to the rescue of the stricken carriage. The carriage driver's indignant squawk at his leaping from the seat is ignored, every sense focusing on the ogre charging the downed carriage. The creature towers over him with fangs that would make an Orc warboss proud and muscles to rival a giant, the club in its hand is the trunk of a small tree with a stone the size of his head lashed to the top with lengths of ragged looking leather.

Ragnar merely hefts his hammer and howls with all the fury of his god staring down the charging beast every inch the Ulrican.

* * *

Prince Liam Greymane groans as he clambers free of his wrecked carriage, his once fine doublet ruined beyond recovery and a few cuts opened along his right side where splinters pierced his skin. The boulder destroyed the door and warped the frame before the remaining energy toppled the construction. The Prince glances around hardly noting the stream of carriages disappearing into the distance while his guards climb free of the carriage, swords in hand. His eyes are locked on the armored figure standing atop a dead ogre with his hammer already arcing towards the skull of a second. The ogre's skull pops like a melon under the hammer's crushing head spraying bits of brain and skull into the air but somehow none of it seems to get on Ragnar.

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ the Knight bellows and drives forward into the ogres without fear. Effortlessly he slips around the wide, and slow, swings of the clubs and slams his hammer home against knees to bring skulls in range. Cold, efficient, and ruthless. When the last of the four are lying dead at his feet the man merely grunts, hefts his hammer to his shoulder and turns to the Prince.

"You alright Prince? That rock hit ya' pretty hard." The man's gruff voice shakes the Prince from his reverie and taking in the hulking corpses that suddenly litter the road.

"Yes, I'm alright. The carriage is shot so we'll have to wait on another and there are people in the swamp below that need your help. I'll start organizing the survivors here while you gather them." The hulking knight grunts and begins his descent to the swamps, some of the guards nearby bristling at the lack of respect while the Prince merely begins organizing the stragglers. Getting the work done is more important than standing on ceremony for every little thing.

* * *

Ragnar curses as he smashes a giant lizard's head in with a sweep of his hammer, barely saving a young girl from a doubtlessly terrible death at the jaws of the massive creature. The girl's parents hurriedly haul her to safety on the bank as the wolf casts one last glance across the swamps for any stragglers. Satisfied that the last of the survivors have escaped he joins the two dozen or so families and trudges up the mountainside towards the road. Grins are shared all around at the sight of the returning carriages, having already dumped their former occupants in Stormglen Village farther up the road, and they are swiftly loaded.

The Prince appears from around the bend in the road bearing a massive tattered standard and a wild grin. Like a child who just stole from the cookie jar guarded by the nastiest cook in existence. Before the White Wolf can open his mouth to ask what in Ulric's name the Prince is doing he sees the horde of undead nipping at his heels...and the massive giant with a club as big as a siege tower in its fist.

"You damned _mad fool!_ " the Templar roars over his shoulder sprinting for the closest carriage.

"It worked didn't it?" Liam retorts with a mad cackle leaping up next to the Templar. The giant screams about the undead stealing its precious flag and lays about with the colossal club, pulping rotting flesh and bone alike sending the undead scrambling for cover.

"Sometimes I wonder if you really _are_ an Ulrican."

"As soon as we get some down time you can tell me about it."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry for the long ass wait but I have a good reason. Honest! I was dealing with changing commands, and then Christmas happened accompanied by a four day MARATHON of family events and such. Bright side? You got me till April. Oh and I might have a few ideas of where this story is going beyond following the Worgen storyline in WoW. But for now I'll settle for a slightly faster update for this story.**


	6. Stormglen

Stormglen

Dusk is rapidly falling by the time that the last of the carriages including the one carrying the crown prince arrive in the ruined town of Stormglen. Exhausted people stumble into the collapsing buildings hoping for the safety needed to rest their weary bones. Equally exhausted guards are posted around the perimeter of the town. Watch and cooking fires flare to life like a thousand fireflies. Ragnar merely sighs in relief and grief. How many times did the people of the Empire have to suffer the same hardships as these Gilneans?

Worgen moving through the crowds help however they can. The people, who would probably have been acting with suspicion and revulsion in normal circumstances, are simply too exhausted to be anything but thankful. Exhaustion pulls at Ragnar's muscles. The sleeping role thrust into his hands singing a sweet siren song. Yet he resists. It is not yet time for him to rest when they are still vulnerable. He can hear the horribly familiar hissing of giant spiders in the seemingly dead trees ringing the nearly ruined town. His hammer never leaves his hand. Golden eyes seem to burn in the fires of a beaten people.

Pride swells in his chest at the burning spirit still evident in their eyes. The strength to endure the trials before them and reclaim what was lost. A spirit not unlike that of Middenland. Fury smolders in his heart at the sight of the children clinging to their parents and crying for lost loved ones. An old woman cradling a tear stained bundle wondering where its parents could be and if they still draw breath.

"It's a disgrace, what has happened to our nation," the normally cheery voice of the prince breaks the Ulrican's reverie. Exhaustion pulls at the young monarch in the making. Heavy bags hang under his eyes and his bright blonde hair is matted and filthy with the days of sweat and blood. He sways on his feet with what little strength he has left and his guards are more than justified in their concern.

"I have seen it a hundred times your highness. Beastmen, Greenskins, Norscans all plague my homeland. We've endured it for over two thousand years and we'll endure it for two thousand more. Ulric willing your people will reclaim their homes and be stronger for it."

"How can we recover...from _this_? The undead have taken our home and they'll not so easily give it up."

" _Ulric's teeth_ man! Look around you!" The massive Templar snarls and throws his arms outwards attracting bloodshot eyes from every direction. A dozen Worgen turn their gaze towards him their eyes subtly glowing with power as they creep closer to the wild haired knight. "Your people breath! Their hearts are pure and their will tested. I have fought horrors beyond count, led hundreds in charges against odds that the _gods_ would shy from. Your homes are infested with the Undead, your bodies scarred by the Ferals, and your strength taxed by this... _Deathwing._ "

At this Ragnar sneers stepping forward. His fiery passion burns brighter attracting more and more to bear witness. His rhetoric is not the soft spoken words of a Priest of the Light promising peace and love for all. His god despises peace as it makes one weak. Strife, constant trials against the world and each other are his way. Not endless war but a way of life that scorns the stagnation of peace. Man never advances as quickly or flies as high as when he is challenged.

"I see in each of your people the spirit of mine own home! Harsh Middenland and our lord Ulric! The God of _Wolves_ and Winter. The Wolf god asks only that we prove ourselves worthy of his halls. No grand gestures, no great sacrifices on an altar, no soaring songs and _never_ will he ask his children to beg. Where is your Light now? When it is needed most where is the Light that would heal you?"

"I-it is i-in each of us m-my good sir," a portly priest stutters as he pushes his way to the front of the crowd. The heavy golden bindings of the book clasped in his hand catch the light of the fires and attracts the Ulrican's ire. His teeth clench tight in a snarl not unlike the wolf of his hammer, eyes burning with raw _fury_.

"Your Church of the Holy Light would demand that you bind its books in gold? That you plate its floors and walls with the very lifeblood of a nation that is _at war?_ How fitting of a faith that preaches of being good and just when those who preach its word grow _fat_ on your hard work!" Ragnar hisses. The leather of his gauntlets creak under the pressure of his clenching fists. Prince Liam hears the words the knight speaks. His upbringing and his faith demand that he refute the wild looking man's analysis of the Church that has brought low the Burning Legion and so many other horrors through the years. Yet...he can feel his heart burning. The smoldering flames ignited by the strange man's rhetoric rise higher.

"Ulric's word is the howl of wolves and the clash of cold _steel!_ Winter is his time! He cares not for gold that could be better used to _defend_ his children! What does your _Light_ say priest? What would it have us do?" The priest, sweat beading across his bald head, gulps before speaking well aware that the feelings of the crowd are against him...all over the bindings of a book. How history has been changed by the smallest of things.

"The Light would have us stay together, care for the sick and the young. Hatred is the way of our enemy! Your pagan god would have us at war with the world! Locked in eternal conflict until the end of all things—"

"Ah but we have always been locked in conflict priest! If not with each other then with nature herself. Winter, cold and harsh as it is, is the one trial that we shall never escape from. Wolves rule this time and it is with _Winter's_ fury, not the songs of the Light, that we shall strike at the enemies of Gilneas!"

* * *

King Genn Greymane remains silent as the Templar and the Priest sling rhetoric and match zeal before his people. His hands clench at his sides trying to keep the Wolf caged. It paces just beneath his skin. Yet it is not the bloodthirsty monster that he fears. It howls with a feral joy at the words of the Templar the name of his god, this Ulric, pulling at his soul demanding fealty. Like that of a father to his child.

"You would have us cavorting like savages in _caves_ wouldn't you? That the Light preaches the virtues of civilization offends your Wolf god doesn't it? Justice and the goodness of our souls will see us through these trials. Honor will keep us from the beasts. The tenacity of the Light's Paladins will banish the dark and bring everlasting peace!" the portly priest spits. Sweat accumulates across his brow and his face is ruby red with the effort of shouting over the jeering crowd.

"Finally something we can agree on!" Ragnar bellows with a laugh that booms from his chest and momentarily silences the crowd. "Honor and tenacity! The virtues of a Wolf of Ulric!"

The grin shining through the Ulrican's bristling beard would be blinding. The King wonders at how quickly the Templar's mood shifts: from berating the Church of Light for supposed weakness to praising them for the same tenets that his own creed value. Whatever he is he draws Gilneans closer. His words speak to that _thing_ just beneath the surface in every man woman and child. That wild thing that lurks just at the edge of your mind but surges to the fore when needed.

"I ask not that you cast aside the Light as it heals and directs you. Justice and honor are the foundation of a people destined to greatness. But, this obsession with peace...Sigmar was the first Emperor of my homeland. Favored by Ulric himself and blessed many times over. _He_ knew that peace is temporary! The hammer Ghal Maraz is a symbol of man's strength and our bonds with the Dwarves of the World's Edge Mountains. In times long forgotten he wielded a _hammer_ ," at this he thrusts his own fearsome weapon into the air for all to see and marvel," to both forge the tribes of man into the Empire and destroy all who would have stood against us! The hammer is wielded even now by Karl Franz of the Reikland to defend the lands Sigmar held dear! All _Ulric_ held dear! Peace is the time between conflicts my friends. Honor and justice are but steel in the forge. It is the hammer of _conflict_ that makes us who we are.

"Do you, good people of Gilneas, desire to roll over and forsake your lands? Do you wish to _break_ under the strain of your trials?" A grizzled man steps forward from the press of bodies. Scars of some great beast marring what might once have been handsome features.

"What would you have us do? Charge into the mouth of hell without a plan?" the old man's gravelly voice is flat and emotionless. Heavy with loss the King knows. Everyone leans forward to hear the Templar's response.

* * *

Ragnar takes a moment to look each member of the crowd surrounding him in the eye. He feels the weight of the expectations pressing down on him. These people who don't know him, only that he worships a god that is strange to them. The fires of Ulric burn brightly in his breast, his wolves howl in his ears. When he speaks it is not the fiery zeal of a Templar but the weary warning of a veteran. One who has borne more death and grief than joy in his short life.

"I see where you misunderstood me. Death and glory. The two walk hand in hand don't they? Every glorious victory is tainted by a shroud of death to me. Endure my brothers and sisters. Endure the coming darkness! Walls fall, homes burn. Grief and hardships are our companions. Death behind, suffering to the front. That is what you see is it not?"

"What else is there? Flee to Stormwind and pray that they accept us and don't treat us as lesser beings? Aye, Gilneas is done boy. Let it die like the city." Ragnar grins.

"Gilneas isn't dead. You are Gilneas. And you, and you," he says spinning around and pointing at random people. An old woman, a child, a Worgen. Spines stiffen at the reminder, that their land is just land and that their country lives in them.

"Ground can be regained. Your King still stands, he still _fights_. What say you Gilneans? Will you slink off to beg for scraps? Or will you fight like the _wolves_ you are?" The Worgen do not hesitate. They lift their muzzles to the sky and howl. A primal, savage sound that has haunted man since time immemorial but here it is anything but threatening. The people join them with a wordless roar, spirits restored for a time. And that is all that Ragnar cares for. He's had enough theological debates with Sigmarite priests that accompany State Troops to know that the conversation could have carried on for days before either one of them grew tired. For now he is content with merely restoring the beaten spirit of Gilneas, they will need it later.

* * *

The exhausted guards wearily cycle through the shifts while the people sleep. The hissing of giant spiders and the haunting calls of Banshees in the dark timber set their nerves on edge. Weapons are clutched in white knuckled grips every second of the watch. Every sound prompts a flinch and creates phantoms. A man's mind is a frantic thing when stressed and faced with the unknown. Ragnar groans and works a kink out of his neck after catching a few pleasurable winks. The four hours of sleep he managed to snatch before a guard came by and woke him we more than enough to recharge his depleted energy stores...for now. The cluster of chattering guards sets him on edge for a moment.

Guards grouped together means one of two things: incompetence, or they found something interesting. It doesn't take very much longer than a blink for him to spot the tall, amazonian, _purple_ figure that attracted so much attention. The White Wolf has seen elves before: the traders sailing from their island home to trade with Marienburg, and the Wood Elves in the Drakwald fighting Beastmen with as much fury as any Ulrican. But this is something different. The fae towers over almost every other man present with the exception of the Templar. Her long purple hair cascades down to the middle of her back, parting around her strangely long ears which are decorated with a trio of golden rings on either appendage.

Bright silver eyes shine like small moons over high cheekbones carved more perfectly than any mortal maiden could hope. A simple, pure white dress clings to her form showing the world her curves before flowing over her legs until it stops just half an inch above the ground. Her bare feet peek from beneath the hem of the dress. Her serene expression doesn't fool Ragnar: the fae always look down on man, as if blaming them for their own fall rather than past hubris. King Greymane is already beside her speaking in hushed tones, and appearing no more well dressed than a beggar beside the beautiful elf.

As if sensing his arrival the two turn to stare at him: the King with the hard gaze of one seeing a threat for the first time. The elf with something bordering on...anticipation? Ragnar being the diplomat he is speaks first.

"Is there something on my face?"

* * *

 **A/N: I know, I suck at theological debates. Before people rip into me for making Ragnar whip his opinion around know that I intend for him to build a smaller version of the Cult of Ulric with the people of Gilneas...mostly the Worgen population. In the Warhammer lore it is suspected that the "children of Ulric" possess the ability to transform into wolves so Ragnar would see them as the children of his God after they regain their minds. I'm going to modify the ritual in the game a little bit so that the Worgen are still just a** _ **little**_ **bit savage, like the White Wolves in Warhammer, rather than just normal people who talk funny and have fleas.**


	7. Scythe of Elune

Scythe of Elune

The dead trees press in close around Ragnar's armored form as he follows the party of Worgen along the game trail. He more than envies the way their lupine forms makes traversing the broken path easier, and is reminded of that fact every time his ankle nearly twists on a root.

"Ulric take these trees…" he murmurs quietly and adjusts his grip beneath the head of his hammer.

"Never did understand why the elves love them so much," one of the nearby Worgen says in the growl-tainted voice that all of the Afflicted have gained in the wake of their transformation. The Templar grunts in response and ducks under a branch that seemed to shift to whack him in the head at the last second.

"I swear if there's a druid at the end of this trail I'm going to split his head open." A round of low, guttural chuckles spread down the line. They fall into silence as they approach the small cabin their trackers traced the group of Dark Rangers too. The warning words of Tobias Mistmantle ring in their ears as they approach the clearing where the small cabin is located. The score or so Forsaken standing guard outside the cabin are little more than half-rotten corpses of men and women from the human kingdoms. Rusting scimitars and cleavers are clutched in their bony hands and no armor beyond a few rotting leather pauldrons and greaves can be seen on any of them. In stark contrast, the four Dark Rangers are resplendent in their steel plate, mail, and maroon cloaks with hoods drawn up over their heads. Bows are held in their hands and wicked swords are belted at their hips.

More Worgen slip through the trees all around the cabin, most armed with nothing more than their strength and claws. Ragnar grins at the thought of battle being so close at hand. His head dips in prayer as he takes a knee in the long rotten detritus of the forest. The mighty weapon's snarling head is pressed into the ground, his hands fold over the butt. He presses his forehead into them and begins to pray. Not the begging prayers of salvation and forgiveness of the more peaceful religions. It is a call to arms and a benediction of strength.

" _Ulric give me the fangs of the Wolf._ "

The Worgen prick their ears in interest, something stirring in their chests at the reverent tone of the Templar's prayer. The primal creatures pacing at the edge of their minds sit up and listen. Every fibre of their beings urges them to listen.

" _Ulric give me the claws of the Wolf. Ulric give me the coat of the Wolf._ "

The hackles of those nearby rise in anticipation, their jaws opening in quiet pants of excitement. Their eyes begin to glow in the light of the moon trickling through the dead trees. Muscular arms flex as if already crushing their foes and ripping them apart with their claws. Snarls and short woofs begin to escape their muzzles as the frenzy begins to grow stronger.

" _And I will show you enemies...the_ mercy _of the Wolf,"_ he concludes with a fearsome growl of his own and rises. The mournful tone of the horn carried by the Worgen entrusted to sneak past the Forsaken sounds shattering the quiet of the forest. Those closest to Ragnar throw their heads back and howl, a savage funeral dirge that has haunted man since he first learned fear of the dark. The Templar rises from his prayer and lifts his weapon into the air with one hand holding the mighty weapon aloft like a battle standard.

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_

* * *

James Redcloak is called many things: thief, miscreant...wanker. But one thing he was never referred to as is a warrior. For that reason he was chosen as the man to sneak past the Forsaken while his fellow Gilneans fought them. But the moment that howling started…

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ A shiver runs down his spine. Fire, unfamiliar and raging, ignites in his heart and a growl boils at the back of his throat. The sight of the others bursting from the treeline lead by that bear of a man in his black armor...it calls to something in him. It's only with the greatest exertion of will that he suppresses the sudden and unreasonable urge to join their charge. The crunch of bone. steel and snarling Worgen erupts, as sweet as a siren song to his addled brain. He shakes it off and links into the shadows. A part of him longing to join them the whole while.

* * *

Ragnar's heart sings with the savage battle-lust. He embraces it like a lover. Lips pulled back in an Ulrican grin he smashes the first corpse-warrior to come in range into the ground. An arrow streaks past his ear burying itself into a Worgen's shoulder. A cleaver slams into his pauldron but fails to penetrate the plate even with the undead strength of its wielder. The bruise that is sure to form there is repaid with a backhanded blow to the chest that collapses the corpse's chest. A Worgen's paw claws off its head to finish it returning her to the grave.

" _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ He buries his hammer's spike in another corpse's skull and jerks it to block a scimitar that would have decapitated him. The Dark Ranger snarls and rips her blade free of what was her comrade.

"Corpse whore!" the Templar bellows and jerks his weapon free, with a new grisly totem in the form of the Forsaken's head still attached to his weapon.

"Silence uncultured barbarian!" she shrieks in response. Her blade is a blur of wicked steel battering at his defences. Unnatural strength and speed powers her assault driving the Ulrican back step by step. His hammer barely manages to block the hungry edge every time, the steel reinforced shaft preserving the wood beneath. Then he retaliates. His savage grin never waivers as he delivers a crushing overhead blow that shatters the Dark Ranger's scimitar into a dozen pieces. Her shock is replaced by pain when the hammer crushes her knee.

The towering Dark Ranger topples, bringing her skull within the hammer's reach. Long rotten brains splatter the Forsaken behind her under the force of the crushing hammer blow. There's no time to savor the victory as a poleaxe screams for his head with only instinct saving him from a meeting with Morr.

"Useless rotting...bastard!" the Ulrican flounders for a proper insult as he wrestles with the corpse for control of his weapon. The beard of the axe is hooked around his hammer's haft and a moment of weakness will rob him of his weapon. Ragnar release his grip with his left hand to let the longer weapon slide free and steps in. A short blow assisted by a savage twist of his shoulders shatters the Forsaken's jaw staggering the former man. A quick adjustment of his grip and a step back brings the hammer down caving in the top of the corpse's skull.

"Ragnar it is done! We're pulling back!" Tobias bellows placing a clawed hand on the Templar's shoulder. Ragnar nods and pulls back with the rest of the raiding force, most of the Forsaken little more than scraps of rotting flesh and shattered bones. Well...ones that no longer are animated at least. Five Worgen lay in their wake enhanced bodies no match for tempered steel.

The long trek back through the woods to the great tree sheltering the feral Worgen and the group of Night Elves assisting them sees a further four of the Afflicted dying. Dark Rangers it would seem have a fetish for poisoning their weapons. Not for the first or last time is Ragnar begrudgingly gald for allowing the mage to assist in mending his armor. Those deaths were not clean. The group's thoughts are broken by the sudden appearance of a troupe of Sentinels materializing from the shadows of the dead trees.

"Greetings Gilneans. I see that your task was completed," the leader of their group comments idly. Her bright eyes take in their haggard appearances, a touch of disdain curling her lip. Ragnar grunts and continues past them not having the patience for dealing with their haughty attitudes.

"Is there something wrong Paladin?" one of the other Sentinels asks. His grey eyes flash flinty as he casts a sneer at the Elf.

"Wondering why this force didn't assist us in retrieving an artifact of _your_ people. Could it be that you value your own lives more than those of your allies?" he wonders, sarcasm dripping from his tone. The Elves merely smile as if regarding a quarrelsome child.

"We were required to stay back and guard—" the leader begins in a patronizing tone. Oh it was polite enough on the surface but anyone can feel the message of it.

"Spare me. I know how you think: an nearly dead race that was writing poetry while we were banging stones together to make fire. We're numerous, short lived and clumsy compared to you. You're cities were once so far beyond what man can construct, your magic more powerful, and your culture refined through thousands of years of tradition. We argue, we're loud, our technology seems crude to you, and even our language seems crude. Yet which of us is ascendant? Hm?" And with a final parting shot he steps past them. The Sentinels glare at his retreating form, some desperately trying to form a coherent argument. Others simply hating him for stating the truth. None try to stop him.

The massive tree known as Tal'Doren rises from the earth like a living god. The once powerful form of the supreme oak is as dead as the forest surrounding it. The base is home to an opening that seems natural rather than the result of axes and chisels. Two Worgen guard the entrance to the tree, their sharp eyes and noses immediately picking up the returning troop. Ragnar nods to them in greeting as they pass. The cavernous space of the massive tree is filled to the brim with the hulking furred forms of the feral Worgen gathered by Darius Crowley.

"I see your quest was successful," the former rebel leader rumbles. His remaining eye bores into the massive scythe held by James Redcloak.

"Stinking bastards never stood a chance against the children of Ulric," the Templar rumbles in reply with a smirk. The Night Elf priests gathered around the three pedestals watch him wearily. That name, this...Ulric. It brings attention better avoided to the ceremony. In their opinion at least.

* * *

Elune watches the coming ritual with baited breath. So many hopes are riding on the ability of her priests and priestesses to correctly conduct the rights needed to calm the wolves of Gilneas. The Goddess of the Moon can feel the tension created by this newcomer and his new God. Her eyes settle on the imposing newcomer with his battle worn armor and wolf hammer. His faith sears the flesh like a harsh winter storm praising strength and scoffing at the guile that has served her people for untold millenia. Brash courage, ferocity, strength, and resilience these are the tenets of his faith. There is no room for the philosopher, the astronomer, the artist and the poet. The sudden presence at the edge of her domain catches her attention.

A cold, wintery being sweeps into her sanctum. Her glowing eyes turn to regard the intruder with the mask of a master politician. She takes in the powerful, _human_ form wrapped in the pelt of a great white wolf and chainmail shirt. Tan breeches tucked into worn boots complete the ensemble and a mighty axe is leaned against one shoulder...much like how the Templar below carries his hammer. A wild, grey beard decorates his weathered face and bright blue eyes stare at her like the hungry wolf he wears as a cloak while his crown is bare of hair.

"Who are you Godling?" the Lunar Goddess demands with her bow materializing in her hands. A sinking suspicion creeps upon her as he merely smirks and nods to the scene within her pool.

"I'm that fire pisser's patron. Ulric. God of War, Winter and Wolves. And I am no Godling, Elf God." The burly God strides to her side and smiles down at the image reflected in the pool. His Wolf and the Sons and Daughters he never knew he had.

"Your devotees are human, that makes you a Godling," the Elf sniffs and turns back to her pool. Dismissing him in her mind.

"Did you know...that the Elf Gods of my world believe themselves to better than the other Divines? That their people are dying just as yours could begin to? That their arrogance led them to believe that that other mortal races are beneath them and suitable only as tools, or bait in their plans and servants in their villas? Of course, they never listened to me either." The War God chuckles without any humor.

"Why are you here? Other than to attempt to annoy me."

"Oh, I don't need to _attempt_ to do _that_ my dear Moon Goddess. Ragnar has already done it on his own. A human who worships another God and Worgen, the result of your people's mistakes, cleaning up a mess _made_ by _your_ people? That has to sting. No I'm here for...an alliance. Of sorts." Elune glares at the Man God for a moment then returns to watching the ritual. Her irritation spikes at the sight of this...Ragnar kneeling in prayer to the God beside him praying for a blessing. A blessing on _her_ ritual! A growl threatens to emerge from between her lips...and that damned _man_ is laughing!

"What is so funny to you barbarian?!"

"Ooh that stings! As if I hadn't gotten that enough from Shallya. That boy down there does me proud! First all those fights against the Undead and then...he asks for my help in another God's rituals because they are being conducted on what he thinks are _my_ children!" Ulric throws back his head in a booming laugh that shakes Elune's garden. A thin layer of frost forms across the leaves and flowers, and encroaches on the edges of the pool. Elune is proud that her mask, hastily repaired after a small slip, holds back the scowl that wishes to be put on display at all the _frost in her garden!_ Nobody has annoyed her this much in...ever!

"So what is this deal then? Speak so I can have your infernal frost out of my garden." The Moon Goddess crosses her arms beneath her not inconsiderable...assets, which in her form fitting dress makes them all the more noticable. The Wolf God ignores the literally divine bosom, having experienced far greater temptation from his own pantheon for thousands of years, and merely smirks once more.

"You know, for a people who claim to be so in touch with nature you sure do like to disregard the natural process. When was the last time that your cities felt the heat of summer, the caress of autumn's breeze? Or the bite of winter? Hardship is as natural an experience as the softest flower's growth you know. But enough of this old man's doddering rant: I want a simple alliance between my Templar, and the Worgen. I want your people to support his eventual mission with them into the Arathi Highlands."

"What mission?"

"The Reclamation of Stromgarde."


	8. The Ritual

The Ritual

The chanting of the Elves is distant as if at the end of a long tunnel. The cold of the wet moss beneath his poleyn seeping through the steel, chill air in his lungs and the lingering taste of the jerky he chewed earlier. These are close, tangible. His lips move in a silent prayer to Ulric beseeching his aid in calming the spirits of the Worgen so that they might better face the trials ahead. A bracing winter wind whips through the chamber sending shivers through the Elven priests and dimming their eyes for a brief moment. Ragnar smiles. The first of the Worgen dips his muzzle to drink from the first of the wells. All present shrink away from a sudden burst of light before Ragnar's kneeling form. They blink the spots from their eyes to the sound of Ragnar's booming laughter. A fourth well.

This one radiates a power beyond the other three, even the one representing the so-called Wolf God of the Night Elves. The base is of a howling wolf, muzzle raised towards the moon. The creature's waving mane is carved with more skill than the greatest of artisans seeming to move in the shimmering light of the moon. The depression holding the same glowing waters as the other three is carved into the shape of a wolf's paw print and plated in pure silver. The leading Druid puffs up in insult as Ragnar continues to laugh.

"Sacrilege!" one of the Druids hisses furiously causing the Sentinels to reach for their weapons. The Worgen are silent, their eyes boring into the pedestal. A whisper at the edge of their senses calls to them.

"What madness is this!?" Vassandra Stormclaw shouts shattering her facade of serenity. Ragnar calms but remains smiling while lifting his hammer to his shoulder. Zeal smolders in his grey eyes. Most would dismiss it as a feverish fantasy but a brief spark of a cold blue flame could be seen in those wild orbs for a heartbeat.

"Ulric has given his own blessing to your ritual!" he chuckles cocking a hip to the side arrogantly. Confidence oozes from his frame even as the Sentinels move to surround him. The unease stirring in their hearts is foreign to the life long wardens of the woods. Those who peer into his eyes see the gaze of a predator pinning them in place. A hungry wolf in the midst of sheep.

"Keep your pagan god from these lands savage!" the Druid snarls reaching for a staff.

" _Calm yourselves!"_ Lord Crowley bellows with a savage growl. His long arm plants his blade in the ground and stalks towards the center of the chamber, single brown eye almost glowing with rage. "All of you will _be calm!_ The fate of our people is in the balance and I will _not_ jeopardize that for your petty religious differences!"

"His presence has sullied the ritual! If the Goddess does not—"

" _Peace."_ Power, soft like the caress of a mother, sweeps through Tal'Doren. Vassandra pauses in her tirade and drops to a knee alongside the other druids. The Worgen shift twitching their ears and noses in an effort to find the source of the voice even if they somehow know they will never find it. Ragnar's grin fades somewhat as he brings his hammer down into a ready stance. Voices without a body tend to indicate bad things where he comes from.

* * *

"And why should I assist your barbarian in reclaiming a fallen _human_ kingdom when my _own_ people are in just as much need?" Elune maintains her stance allowing none of the typical Elven haughtiness to seep through her voice, making it seem as a genuine question instead.

"Because _war_ is coming to your lands once again. A repeat of the same conflicts that has plagued your people since the greenskins came through their little portal. Oh don't act so surprised, it is easy to peer through the veil in your world to see the going ons of its people. Our own Orks are somewhat different to yours but just as savage in battle. I know how they think: they gather their strength even as their leaders wish for peace. Their souls cry out for war and your Alliance hasn't done much to work towards a lasting peace with them. It won't take much to light that powderkeg."

"I know this so I ask again: what's the point?"

"If Stromgarde is reclaimed then that's another buffer state between the Horde and the heartlands of the Alliance. Another bastion against the coming darkness. Your warriors would have more time to prepare a defence against the Horde if the Arathi Highlands are held by people who know them with a strong position to retreat to." Ulric grins and leans on his axe watching the Elf Goddess mull over his answer, the image in the pond frozen for a time so that they might debate without worrying over a time limit. She's no fool. A stronger Human Race means a stronger shield for the Night Elves. But the task he is suggesting…

"Do you know what awaits in Stromgarde? The foes that he would face and have to oust from those ruins?" she asks with an arched, perfectly formed, brow. Ulric merely chuckles.

"Nothing he hasn't faced before. The ogres of your world are so much easier to kill and are so much weaker than those of ours, at least in the Highlands. If he were to be sent to the mountains of Alterac I might have cause for concern." Elune resists the urge to scoff at the bravado of this Man God. Dismissing Ogres is a fool's mistake; dumb beasts they might be by the estimates of most other mortal races but their strength of arms and even their primitive magic is not to be underestimated. She again considers the benefits of such an arrangement. The Templar is obviously a skilled warrior and something about his faith inspires the Afflicted. He hates the Undead and Orcs with a passion...but treats her people with no small amount of suspicion and even disdain.

"What do you get out of this Man God?"

"My world, my people, are besieged eternally by the Four. Every year my people weaken a little bit more, lose a little more ground, have a little harder time raising the crops needed to survive the next winter and endure the next time the Northmen come south. Ragnar coming to your lands... was no accident."

* * *

"The Goddess has spoken. The ritual...will continue," Lyros says with a face not unlike one who just bit into an unripened lemon. Ragnar doesn't relax but does step away from the center of the circle of Wells. One by one the Worgen come forward to sip from the Wells. Each time a Worgen arrives before the first three the druid manning it gives a short speech, the same line over and over again in a ritualized manner extolling the virtues of their Gods and barely refraining from giving the human a smug glance. The Templar waits until every Worgen has taken a sip of his Well while leaning on his hammer. His face might as well have been carved from stone as not even a breath of wind disturbs a strand of hair on his head. Grey eyes bore into every supplicant as they bow to him and then drink. Lord Crowley is last to drink giving the Templar a shallow nod. Crowley takes his place at the head of the milling Worgen leaning his sword across one hairy shoulder as the Templar steps into the center of the ring of Wells.

"My name is Ragnar! When I had just seen my seventh winter a creature known as Khazrak the One Eye butchered my family and our entire village. I wandered for three days along the roads until a captain in the State Army of my home province found me. I was brought before the Elector Count himself, Boris Todbringer, and made to tell my tale. That was the day the Knights of the White Wolf brought me into their pack. That was the day that I felt Ulric's will. It was _Ulric_ that taught mighty Sigmar Heldenhammer the power of a united peoples, it was _Ulric's_ teachings and blessing that forged the Empire two-thousand years ago. I look around me at each of you," he spins in a circle seeming to look every Worgen present in the eye.

"And I see the same strength that Sigmar himself, a man who would become a God by his own hand, saw in the scattered tribes of Man! Loyalty, honor, and sacrifice! Ulric favors you all, the Wolves are his children!"

"And what would your pagan God have of them then _child_?" Vassandra challenges as she steps into the moonlight, her fair features a mask of stone yet hardly concealing the venom in her words. "Go galavanting off towards the greatest monsters they can find and die beneath its claws? Turn half the world to ash to unite the people under a single banner thought it may be stained with their own blood? Would you have death for all that follow you?"

The Templar merely smiles and sets his hammer on his shoulder.

"You think me a madman eh? Ha! I am not mad. I speak of the world as _I_ see it and it is up to _you_ to see the madness in my words if there is any to be found. Your peoples have spent too long hiding beneath your trees and letting others do most of the dying for you. Tell me...who faced the brunt of the Orc invasion when they arrived on your world? Who forms the bulk of this...Alliance's armies when on the march? Is it the Dwarves? Gnomes? Or Elves? Hm?"

None speak to refute him. None can. Blood is thicker than water and despite their changes the Worgen are still mostly human.

* * *

"No accident you say? How did he arrive then?"

"I made a wager with one of the Four: my Wolf, against the Burning Legion." Elune scoffs in a most unladylike fashion at the arrogance of the Man God. One man against the entirety of the Burning Legion? Madness and folly.

"Then your man is sure to die. The Burning Legion is the single greatest threat to Azeroth in existence, aside from the Old Gods." Ulric chuckles and hefts his axe to lean it against his shoulder.

"So are the Demons of Chaos and their mortal puppets. And yet ordinary folk with no excessive blessings, no enchanted weapons, no great magics except that which threatens their very souls have held them at bay for two thousand years. Steel, faith, and gunpowder." The Moon Goddess wrinkles her nose at the mention of that stinky, noisy, _loud_ kind of weapon. They're so inelegant in the compared to blade and bow.

"You have turned my world and my people into a game board for your pantheon's battles. You are not helping your case."

"Let me put it this way. Ragnar is a battering ram. He can only really go two ways down there: either unite the Worgen with the Alliance and lead them in battle against the Horde and the Legion when they come again, or Humanity splits off from the rest of the Alliance and Azeroth falls to ruin when the Legion arrives. It's your choice Elf Goddess." Her luminous eyes close briefly in thought and frustration. How could one human, albeit one different from all others below her, cause so much chaos to what should be an ordered script of events?

The answer is simple. For all their short lives humans crave change and advancement whereas the older lived races prefer to remain stagnant and slowly advance along their same lines. Their long lives hinder their progression and leave them bitter when change is introduced and forcefully rammed down their throats as humans are want to do. No matter how much the change is needed it is never favored. And right now a change is needed in the favor of the Alliance. If it had formed when the Orcs first arrived there would have been so much less destruction and death, if the Elves had committed more to the world's events in recent years the casualties of the First and Second War would have been so much lesser.

As one of the world's oldest races they should have been at the forefront of forming the Alliance against the growing threats not the Humans.

"I will...support this human. As long as he remains true to his path." Ulric grins savagely and chuckles.

"If there is one thing that will always be true of my followers is that they will never be discouraged from their mission. It only makes them that much more determined to succeed."

* * *

Whatever might have transpired afterwards is interrupted by a familiar figure sprinting through the doorway. Lorna Crowley smiles through the joyous tears at her father and leaps into his arms. Ragnar smiles softly at the sight as do most of those present except a few sullen Druids. Not that anyone pays them any attention.

" _Crowley!_ " the booming voice of one Lord Godfrey shatters the moment as easily as a warhammer to a mirror. "You and your elven allies are hereby ordered to serve in the King's army. Cursed or not, you are still bound by Gilnean law!"

Ragnar snarls, somehow sounding more wolfish than the Worgen who are even now beginning to pin their ears back in anger. The massive Templar stomps forward attracting the Lord's attention. Godfrey doesn't step back in fear, but he does narrow his eyes and lay the palm of his hand on the pommel of his sheathed sword.

"You... _dare!_ You dare to come in here and demand loyalty for the King who is even now walking down the path behind you when you know that he has it!?" Ragnar doesn't cease his advance until he is glaring down at the older Lord. His shoulders shake with a raw fury.

"Get out of my face _savage,_ " Godfrey hisses trying to seem larger than he is. The furious Ulrican before him doesn't cower like the simpering toadies that hang onto Lord Godfrey's coat tails. It is to this sight that King Genn Greymane arrives to. The King strikes an imposing figure with his hands clasped behind his back, spine ramrod straight, and a beautiful blade at his hip. The tension in the hollow weighs on everyone's shoulders as the King strides up to Crowley and his daughter.

"Does this toad speak for you Genn?" Darius' voice is low and tired as he stares down at his friend's severe expression. "Do you come as a friend, and as a King that we would die for? Or as a tyrant?"

The King turns to Ragnar who marshals his rage and stuffs it behind an impassive mask. Two pairs of grey eyes stare at each other for a moment that seems to stretch for eternity before the King turns back to his old friend.

"No old friend, I have not come as King or tyrant. I have come as an equal." The King, already an imposing figure, begins to swell and smoke as The Curse is brought to the fore. The Worgen raise their muzzles and howl their joy at another member of the pack's return sending chills down the spines of the Druids and Templar. Lord Godfrey pales in shock and horror his jaw hanging open like a fish out of water. The powerful grey Worgen King stands tall and proud before his people who fall to their knees. Even Ragnar goes to one knee before the King and child of Ulric.

"Impossible…" Lord Godfrey gasps. None notice the look of betrayal that crosses his face. A glint appears in his eyes, the mad glint one gets when desperate beyond all measure.

His presence fades to insignificance as he steps back into the shadows and the Worgen crowd around their King. Only Ragnar notices him sulking off down the forest path back to Stormglen. Only he feels the small knot of suspicion growing in his gut at the nobleman's behavior having seen it once before. When a town's mayor called on a raving mad Sigmarite Witch Hunter and the town was nearly burned to the ground along with the White Wolves who were _supposed_ to be defending it. His fist tightens on the haft of his hammer and he follows the sulking man.

No good can come of a man like _him_ slinking away from what should be a unifying moment.


	9. Pride and Predjudice

Pride and Prejudice

Lord Walden curses the rain for the thousandth time from under the cover of his porch. The solidly built house passed down through his family stands tall and firm in the face of nature's wrath, a sanctuary of warmth and comfort. His household guards stand watch in the rain before the house and along the roads, ever vigilant for the ravening savages that would see every Gilnean infected or dead. The ageing Lord scoffs and rests his hand on the pommel of his sword.

The foolishness of their King would see their country plunge off the edge and into darkness. The city has already fallen, the vaunted Greymane Wall breached. The mewling sheep in his field attracts his attention for a moment. Of all the things that could have been chosen to live on his property…it had to be sheep. He sucks in a deep breath of the salty air of Tempest's Reach and leans against a support. The illusion of peace settles over him once again.

A cracking of bone, squelching of flesh, and a cry of pain shatters it. One of his guards collapses revealing a shimmering, armored figure. Whatever was keeping the attacker cloaked fades away revealing him for them all to see. A towering figure clad in plate and mail, wild copper hair plastered to his skull from the rain, hefts his hammer menacingly. Blood drips from the clenched jaws of the wolf worked into the head.

"Ulric take you all _traitors!_ " the man snarls and charges forward. The remaining guards leap to meet him blades drawn and shining in the flashes of lightning dancing across the sky. Well trained, highly motivated to defend their lord, and experienced. None of them stand a chance. The armored man roars and ducks under the first man's thrust. His hand slides up his hammer shortening the grip and slamming the head into the guard's hip.

Bone shatters and he tips forward. The hammer rises and falls caving in the guard's skull with a single blow. The next man doesn't last past the first move, taking a strike to the chest that caves in his ribs and sends him flying back. The last man slides to a stop and trades a few blows before he forgets something crucial. Seeing an imagined opening he swings for the exposed ribs. In his panic forgetting the plate of steel encasing the man's torso.

Gilnean steel slams into dwarf forged plate and barely dents it. The burly knight traps the blade beneath his arm and brings his hammer down with one hand driving the head into the guard's neck. The man crumples like a puppet with his strings cut leaving Walden to his own defense. His hand shakes drawing his blade in anger for the first time in over two decades. The armored man steps over his guard hefting his hammer.

"Why betray your King!?" the wild haired knight demands. Fury turning his voice into an animalistic growl. His every squelching step echoes death coming for the treacherous Lord.

"T-that monster is n-not my King!" he stutters in reply and steps off the porch.

"I'll waste no more words on a fool."

Lord Godfrey stares into the sheets of driving rain, peering between the flashes of lightning and booming thunder. Waiting for the pack of wild beasts that no doubt is on its way to rescue their King. _Their_ King. Not his.

The flea-bitten beast lost that right the moment he kept his curse a secret and dared to continue leading the Gilneans as one of the beasts that stole their home from them. Said creature looks miserable in chains staked in the rain. Godfrey's loyal soldiers stand ready under the eaves of the small farmhouse and barn, their blades ready and willing to taste the flesh of the Beasts. The distant clop of hooves on the cobblestones stirs the guards.

Godfrey's heart begins to hammer in his chest. Anticipation stirs as the rider approaches. A grey figure begins to solidify between the raindrops. Broad shoulders becoming more defined revealing the familiar armor plates of Ragnar of the White Wolf. The guards shift uneasily as the rider guides his massive warhorse into the center of the courtyard before tossing a pair of gilded blades to the ground before Godfrey.

"Your allies are dead. This madness ends now," Ragnar declares. His voice is cold and unfeeling as winter's breath spreading unease through the ranks.

"It's over Godfrey. You have no support among the eastern lords," the King announces heavily. Grief laden eyes watching the fury coming over his old friend's face.

"No…I'd sooner _die_ than have one of your kind for a King!"

"That can be arranged traitor!" Ragnar snarls and kicks his horse forward raising his hammer menacingly. Godfrey sneers and draws his blade too angry to consider the wisdom of his actions.

" _No!_ Let him go. Too much blood has been shed today." King Greymane declares daring Ragnar to dispute his command. The Templar slowly lowers his weapon, eyeing the disgraced Lord with all the disdain he can muster. Godfrey runs into the rain, swiftly fading from view.

A deafening roar rips free of Ragnar's throat drowning out the hissing cries of the Forsaken. His hammer splits the air and then crushes through a paper-thin skull. Rotting brains spray everywhere and the undead warrior collapses to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut. Another swings a cleaver for his arm only to gape as it glances off solid dwarf forged steel. The corpse walker doesn't have long to be surprised when the hammer swings around and crushes it leg. The Forsaken falls to the ground and looks up just in time to see the wolf jaws of the hammer crush through the front of its skull.

"Ulric's _fucking teeth_ I hate _fucking_ —" A jagged blade screaming for his face interrupts the White Wolf's tirade. His hammer knocks it aside on instinct and his head slams forward in a classic Middenheim Kiss. The Forsaken's rotting nose shatters and the corpse staggers back enough for Ragnar's armored boot to slam into its gut. An overhead hammer blow drives its skull into its chest like a nail and it falls.

"—nobles and their damn schemes!"

"I must agree, they are most aggravating," one of the Worgen accompanying him remarks as he rips his claws from a Forsaken's sunken chest cavity and wipes the mess off on the ground. The remnants of the Forsaken force keeping a number of Gilneans prisoner in a mine retreat further within towards the lair of their leader leaving the Gilneans to recover their strength for a final assault and Ragnar to stew in his anger. The fury of Godfrey's betrayal boils in his guts driving itself onwards. He can barely contain it all and must use the Forsaken as an outlet.

Too many times he saw the Empire falter at the crucial moment because some blue-blooded noble decided to make a move on his rival or earn that little bit more prestige and get good men killed. The White Wolves are more unique among the knightly orders as they accept anyone that proves themselves; commoner or noble they accept all comers. Ulric doesn't care for birth only the mettle of those who worship him.

The frustration turns to fury driving Ragnar forward. The tunnels are well lit by the Forsaken who shove aside their slaves still chained to their work for more room to fight. It doesn't help them survive. The Worgen rip them to shreds to either side of Ragnar's swinging hammer. Leather and chainmail do nothing to stop the sheer force of his blows which shatter unliving bodies like glass. Deeper into the mine they press as a wall of fury, fur, and claw. Their master stands at the center of the lowest chamber, hefting the cleaver and hook so iconic to the Abominations, and stares Ragnar down.

An hour later Ragnar plops himself down on a crate in the Gilnean camp and drags a rag across his hammer to clean it of gore. The brains and rotting guts of Brothogg the Slavemaster do not cling to the blessed steel as he cleans it. The feeling of eyes watching his back draws his attention towards a familiar mage. Alera Blackmane was largely relegated to healing the wounded and protecting the caravan of civilians from Forsaken raids along with those of random wild animals that plague the world, and thus was spared much of the insanity that the last week has entailed.

However, with the retaking of Gilneas now starting to look like a reality she and all other battle capable wizards are being called to the front. Something she is _not_ happy about.

"I blame you," she declares imperiously, gesturing with her staff so that the flickering crystal leaves spots swimming across his vision.

"For what?" he asks with an arched brow.

"My life was perfectly calm before the Worgen and your happy ass popped out of a portal. I was going to open a small shop to treat the sick. All I ever wanted. Instead _here I am!_ Getting ready for a battle for the first time in my life because the undead are in my house messing with my petunias!" Ragnar merely smirks at the mild hysteria in her voice.

"It could be worse."

The once imposing and supposedly unbreachable edifice of the Greymane Wall bears mute witness to the procession winding through its gates. Shambling, rotting corpses tramp through the gates around carts of petrified wood weighed down by arcane machinery. Bubbling cauldrons and wheezing bladders are carefully tended by their unliving crew. Carrion steeds strain against the weight of their burdens pushing the enchantments biding them together to the limit.

From atop her own rotting mount the Banshee Queen watches it all with a sinister smile. Her glowing red eyes observe the procession much like a mother does her toddler taking its first steps. This is a risky move. The Blight is no simple disease after all…

"My Queen," one of her servants gurgles from his position kneeling in the dying grass. Smoldering eyes turn to regard the pitiful wretch as if regarding a roach about to be crushed underfoot.

"Our forward forces are ready to receive the Gilneans, and the first of the Blight is nearly ready."

"Good. I hope our little _welcome_ is to King Greymane's…satisfaction." The walking corpse is just smart enough to recognize the dismissal in her tone and bows his head before rejoining his comrades. The Banshee Queen greedily scans the silent city with her glowing red eyes. Taking Gilneas is a risky move for the Horde let alone the Forsaken, if it fails, they stand to lose massive amounts of bodies and material that might be better used in other theatres…but if they succeed, they knock and entire kingdom out of any further fights.

The former Ranger-General kicks her steed forward trailed by her bodyguard of Dark Rangers and Deathguard. The rusting iron hooves clack against the cobblestones joining the tramp of rotting feet and steel shod boots. The shattered gates yawn widely as if welcoming the Forsaken…a corpse greeting another corpse. The Forsaken units already within the city bow to her as she passes and are ignored. Sylvanas Windrunner doesn't acknowledge her subjects, already writing them off as truly dead. The Horde wants a port into Lordaeron…and a port they shall have.

An unseasonal cold wind sweeps through the city throwing refuse about and rattling the tree branches together with a haunting raspy scrape. The cold would have made the living shiver, but none reside within the city and the Undead are beyond heat and cold. Sylvanas snorts at the faint howling of wolves carried by the wind. She doesn't fear the Gilneas and their Beasts. All will fall to the Forsaken, serving in life or slaving in death.

 **A/N: Sorry for it being short but the next chapter is going to be long as shit and I don't want to infringe on it if at all possible.**


	10. Flames of Ulric

Flames of Ulric

The walls of Gilneas City rise before the returning people stirring mixed feelings. The memory of the horrors experienced within those cold grey walls are fresh in their minds just two weeks past. Knowledge of the horrors yet to come play out in their mind's eyes while they prepare their assault. The once strong gates lay shattered on their hinges exposing the interior to their wrathful gaze: the hordes of Forsaken drawn up in necrotic ranks just inside the walls, and the heads of their archers atop the walls.

The Guardsmen of Gilneas City stand at the front of their countrymen in their mail and plate. Fury building in them at the stern reminder of their failure before their eyes. Their duty, sworn and payed in blood, was to hold the city no matter what came. And they failed. Their King has given them the opportunity to reclaim their honor as part of the vanguard supported by the best battle mages they have. Men with Gilnean long guns are drawn up behind them to cover their advance, and behind them are the Worgen. Scores of Worgen in their beast forms panting with anticipation. Their lupine yellow eyes locked on one man kneeling before all of them.

Ragnar prays quietly under his breath before the children of his god with his forehead pressed to the head of his hammer. The small flecks of gold in the wolf's eyes seem to burn with his faith when he stands.

"It is time barbarian." The acidic comment of Alera Blackmane washes off his skin like water off stone. He turns his frosted gaze to the coming challenge and finds a snarl twisting his lips. Fury bubbles in his guts. Such rage to make the berserkers of Norsca envious. A cold rage like that of winter's breath sweeping across the lands of men and stealing the breath from their lungs, the warmth from their hearts.

"Aye, these corpses have been beyond the grave too long already." The crisp peal of a hunting horn rings out across the causeway. Like a wave crashing against the shore, the first men begin the long march across the bridge followed by the rest of the army. Ragnar tenses as a shimmering blue field appears over their heads expecting the gut roiling _wrongness,_ he has associated with magic all of his life. The Winds of Magic in his homeland are as much the stuff of Chaos as the most twisted demon capable of mutating any who touch it without precautions. The Mages of the Colleges spend decades honing their craft to be able to ply it with any acceptable risk before being loosed upon the world.

The magic of this land is…different. It feels more like a swarm of ants creeping across his skin one moment, then a warm spring rain the next. The shifting sensations bring a scowl to his face as he keeps one cold grey eye on the shifting runes within the fields. Then spells begin to rain down on the shield like hail. Ice, lightning, flames and stone hammer the blue barrier which seems no thicker than a piece of parchment. The shifting runes burn brightly with the strain reflected on the faces of the mages maintaining it.

Blackmane mutters a curse and adds more power to her section of the field. The tip of her staff blazes with azure light flaring in tune with the blows raining on her section. Arrows are loosed from black iron bows to patter against the cobblestones, and thump into raised shields. The Guardsmen of Gilneas know their business linking their shields together in a seamless wall to protect their flesh. Long guns belch smoke and fire in reply tearing chunks out of the stone battlements. Ragnar grins savagely when he spots several heads explode in a burst of necrotized flesh and black blood where the bullets find their marks.

"When the winds of winter blow at the door."

The mages not maintaining the shield sling fire and ice at the walls and the gates blowing holes in the bombardment where the Forsaken neglect to erect their own arcane barriers. Their undeath being their only shield.

"When the wolves howl in the hills and stalk the fields."

Another volley from the long guns ripples under the shield hammering the battlements without breaking step. The causeway is almost half crossed by now, the drawbridge disabled and lowered. The Guardsmen break from their shieldwall and into a galloping Boar's Snout, a formation that Ragnar mentioned was often used to break enemy lines by the Empire. Not a strict truth, but a little white lie to help these less disciplined troops wouldn't go amiss. The lead man drives his longsword through a Forsaken warrior's chest and slams his shield into the groaning corpse.

"The Children of Ulric have come. And death runs with them."

The men of Gilneas know how to fight the corpses. Blades hack and chop through rotting flesh and brittle bone, shields bash through emaciated bodies and crush skulls through rusting iron helms. Ragnar pants eagerly like a wolf behind them, his grey eyes almost glowing with an ethereal light. The riflemen part to allow the Worgen through their ranks still firing at the archers and targets of opportunity. A cold winter wind sweeps through the city. Worgen tilt their muzzles to the heavens and howl their joy. Their hunger. Their rage.

 _"_ _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ Divine power flows through Faith. And Ragnar's Faith ignites across the head of his hammer. Cold white flames, like those burning at the heart of Ulric's Faith in Middenheim, snap to life about his hammer's head. Ragnar howls like the wolf he is and charges forward. The Worgen snarl and leap over their comrades falling on the Forsaken in a tide of fur and claw and fang. The Guardsmen reel back in surprise then surge forward with new fury. Mages fling fire and summon lighting to blast holes in the undead ranks. Ragnar shoves his way through the press of Guardsmen and throws himself into the Forsaken.

 _"_ _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ he bellows and swings his hammer in a searing arc. Three Forsaken burst into flames and are quickly turned to ash. The Forsaken screech as one and shrink back from the swinging hammer, hampered by their own numbers as he presses forward. The hammer lashes out again and again. The fury of Ulric himself brought to mortal plane. Blackened flesh is burned to ash, bone cleansed of rot by purifying flames of winter.

"Forward sons and daughters of Ulric! They fear us! Send them back to their crypts!" he roars, his flames and zeal driving the Forsaken back all on his own. More magic rains down in the courtyard blasting apart the Forsaken before they can press their advantage in position and strength against the Guardsmen. The irregular warriors of Gilneas press in behind their nominal protectors with their fine swords and guns. They stream to either side of the guardhouse to clear the walls of archers. Mages follow along behind casting spells of healing and protection. Ragnar ignores it all and presses harder. Only the Worgen can compete with the zealous Templar. With a savage roar unfit for a mortal man he swings his hammer in a streaming arc catching a corpse under the jaw, flinging the now burning corpse back into the ranks of his fellows.

Three more are consumed by the flames of the corpse. Their wails strike fear into the sluggish rotten hearts of the Forsaken. Limbs quivering with a fear long thought forgotten they throw themselves recklessly at the Worgen only to be torn apart. Ragnar howls louder and drives deep into the ranks of the Forsaken behind crushing hammer blows. Riflemen and mages take advantage of the height afforded to them by the walls and rain hell on the gathered undead. Crackling volleys scything down the rear ranks of the Forsaken while mages blast holes in the masses.

The courtyard is cleared quickly. Gilneans flow into the city over a carpet of corpses returned to the grave.

 **((-))**

Alera Blackmane smiles in satisfaction as her new spell sows discord among the enemy ranks. The normally simple Fireball spell has been altered carefully to explode once and then spawn four smaller bolts to cause further damage. Almost negligently she casts a wide area healing spell restoring strength and sealing wounds to keep the berserking Worgen intact. It is amazing to her how they move, the way the Forsaken are ripped apart in an orgy of steel and claw. But most mystifying of all is the white flame wreathing Ragnar's hammer.

The latent magic in the air seems to shiver around him eagerly leaping to feed those flames. And as far she can tell it is conjured by his faith alone, the barbarian lacking any kind of magical talent. It's mystery that she will greatly enjoy peeling away after this mess if she has to chain the burly Templar to a chair herself. Right now, there's a group of Forsaken mages that don't have even a basic barrier raised just _begging_ for a fireball to wipe them out. Said fireball leaps from her fingers like an eager puppy and rips through their tattered robes scorching their bones black.

Flaming bits of undead rain all around them catching more on fire. The visible strain on the mages keeping the barrier raised fades slightly and the Gilneans surge. Magic, gunfire, arrows, swords, axes, claws and fangs rip the Forsaken apart. Rallying behind the flaming hammer of Ragnar the Gilneans break into the city trampling the fallen defenders beneath their boots and paws. A foreign feeling begins to grow in her breast as her countrymen brush aside the Forsaken reinforcements like flies.

Hope.

 **((-))**

For the returning Gilneans their anger is stoked ever higher the longer they fight in _their_ streets. _Their_ houses. _Their homes._ They fight like heroes driving back the Forsaken with blade and claw and musket. Barrages of musket fire and spells shatter whatever concentrations are too large to be dealt with quickly. Isolated Abominations are ripped apart by savage Worgen. Prince Liam maintains his grim mask of Royalty as he follows the household guard into the city. Inside he is whooping and hollering like a little boy. The deeper they press into the city the more disorganized the resistance becomes. As if the Forsaken are caught by surprise.

The noise of bawled orders and trundling wheels across cobblestone attracts him towards the artillery battery lugged into the city. The long, fluted cannons are the most lethal weapon in the Gilnean arsenal and their only real hope of breaking through any fortified position without wasting the strength of their mages. The cannons are set up to cover a side street as the main body of the army presses forward. A good thing too as a company of Abominations charges down the street and into the teeth of the guns. The massive corpse-constructs are blown apart in a storm of fire, smoke, and iron.

"Forward! Don't let them reform!" the Prince shouts waving his sword like a conductor of an orchestra. Guardsmen stomp forward to obey under the cover of a half dozen mages. The swarm of Forsaken riding on the heels of the Abominations is quickly dealt with in a mad flurry of steel and magic. The Gilneans grind inexorably inwards through the city street by street, block by block, house by house. Blood and congealed fluids flow through the gutters.

Gunsmoke and chemical clouds conjured by the mages flinging vials of potent substances back and forth choke the air in places where the fighting is thickest. Liam leads a company of Guardsmen into the market square to find a savage brawl already in progress. Worgen leaping from the roofs of houses like they had during the fall but this time they savage the Forsaken among the shattered stalls. A brilliant light and bellowed laughter attracts his gaze to the far corner of the market and a broad smile splits his face.

Ragnar.

 **((-))**

 _"_ _Ulric Wölfe sind gekommen!"_ Ragnar roars leaping from an overturned cart and into the midst of the wavering Forsaken. The flames of Ulric burn in his breast and atop his hammer, his normally cold grey eyes shining with a divine light as he drives deeper into the undead without fear. Everywhere his hammer passes the Forsaken smolder and die. His armor remains untouched by any blade or hammer wielded by the enemy and no mage can aim their spells at him while so close to their own troops.

The slightly more intelligent nature of the Forsaken compared to the thralls of the Vampire Counts proves a hinderance here as they are unwilling to immolate their own troops to stop him. A heavily armored corpse bearing a rusted greatsword deflects a blow of his hammer at the price of its own sword. On instinct his head shoots forward cracking the bareheaded corpse across the rotten black nose with the crown of his head. The Ulric's Kiss staggers the corpse for a moment allowing the Templar to raise his hammer in a crushing blow that shatters its skull.

"Ragnar!" a familiar voice shouts through the cacophony of battle from across the market. The Templar grins upon catching sight of the Prince atop his chestnut charger, rapier raised in a salute and a broad smile of his own in place.

"Come to join the fun Prince?" the Templar's voice carries easily over the noise of the battle. Guardsmen shout in unison to keep pace with each other maintaining a shieldwall that bowls over the Forsaken, men trailing the wall stabbing and hacking to finish off what corpses remain behind.

"Couldn't let you have _all_ the glory of taking back our city!"

Ragnar laughs and smashes a corpse without looking behind him. The chilled flames still wreathing his hammer hungrily consume the Rogue until it falls like a puppet with its strings cut.

 **((-))**

Alera watches in mute awe as concentrated catapult and mage fire brings the Undead Giant to its knees and then to the ground, dead once more and freed of its hellish half-life. Gilneans flow around the corpse like a tide of righteous fury and steel. Hacking down the Forsaken that remain in the former prison where Crowley was once held as a rebel. Ragged corpses are thrown from the rooftops to fall as so much refuse in the gutters. Piled in avenues and alley ways.

Ill-equipped wretches thrown at the Gilneans to tire them out and bleed their fervor. A false triumph in spite of so much being accomplished. Only the mages and commanders farther to the rear of the assault have begun to realize the truth of this battle. Their foe is cunning and ruthless. Sacrificing hordes of its lesser servants to tire the enemy and allow their more preferred forces to deliver the killing stroke.

A shout of pure frustration and annoyance stirs her thoughts back to the fighting at the base of the prison. A figure clad in plate armor and hefting a burning hammer stares at the fallen giant. Disappointment oozing from him. Alera smirks at the childish behavior of the savage denied his challenge. Magic still quivers about the hammer wielding barbarian sending shivers down her spine. Once more she promises herself that she will chain down the barbarian and interrogate him on how he managed such a feat with his brute intelligence.

"You robbed me!"

"Of what?" Lord Crowley growls in honest confusion.

"Look at it! Think of the glory to be had if I had killed it myself! Argh! You owe me one eyed son of a—"

"Calm down barbarian there are more corpses for you to brutalize with your hammer." The two men turn to blink owlishly at her.

"Was that a euphemism for something?" the barbarian inquires with a cocked eyebrow. Alera blushes in sudden realization and grips her staff tightly, pressing her lips in a thin line.

"Not. One. More. _Word,_ " she hisses and stomps off to join her cohort. Studiously ignoring the barely stifled chuckles coming from the two men.

 **((-))**

Sylvanas watches the Gilneans flow into the city massacring her followers, her face a studied blank mask. Crimson eyes soaking in the slaughter and flames and suffering. Before turning away to observe the instrument of the Doom of Gilneas. The large cauldrons hauled by the creaking carts being carefully arranged and tended to by the Forsaken handlers. The ranks of actual Forsaken warriors clad in plate bearing untarnished swords. The manticores with their satchels of bombs ready to soar over the exhausted Gilneans and coral them back towards the Blight.

The former Ranger-General is a cruel creature, made so by the thing that made her what she is now. Her empathy as dry as her veins and her soul as black as her rotting heart. Once she would have railed against what she is about to. Fought until her last breath and beyond to save them. Now she is almost eager to begin. Her subordinate Dark Rangers are already moving into the city using her dying troops as a veil to eliminate the leaders of the Gilnean charge. Cutting the heads from the hydra and leaving the King to watch as his kingdom is forever lost to him.

She kicks her undead mount forward into the city with a contingent of her guards. The crushing of the Gilnean King's will require a more personal touch. She can hear the howling of the Cursed in the distance growing ever closer. The crackle of gunpowder weapons, those noisy and utterly dwarven creations that both they and the humans have fallen in love with, brings the acrid taste of the accompanying smoke that washes over the death and decay of the Forsaken.

Mages blast holes through her own tattered forces still desperately fighting to slow the advance adding the scent of charred meat and ozone to the pallet of flavors tainting the air on a chilled winter wind in spring. Bringing her procession to a halt in one of the squares near the edge of the city, close enough to a gate for her to make a speedy escape, she waits. Twin blades resting on the horn of her saddle and her crimson eyes staring down the largest street feeding into the square. The street where the forces accompanying the Gilnean Prince will emerge.

The Prince, however, is _not_ the first of the forces to break through the lines. The swirling mass of claws and steel and blood spills from one of the narrower streets. Worgen clad in rags and bits of armor rip apart the chaff that resists them allowing more disciplined Gilnean Guards in their plate and chainmail to widen the breach and secure the street. Mages and riflemen shred the surging Forsaken with spells and lead. A shiver of… _something_ runs through Sylvanas as she catches sight of a wild hair man in heavy armor.

His hammer whirls and swings and crushes as if it were as light as a switch. The white flame wreathed head smashing apart her followers and burning those it touches to ash on the wind. No chance at revival. Not that any of them have earned it. The Wild One picks up a wretch by the throat and hurls it bodily over the heads of those closest to him. The fools actually watch the body fly before that flaming hammer smashes four of them aside with a single blow. Their flaming corpses catch yet more of them on fire.

The devouring flames rapidly consume those they touch. Their shrieks of agony are piercing before they are snuffed out by their rotting vocal cords being scoured from existence by flames that should not be. An arrow zips in from a rooftop loosed by a bow that is powerful enough to pierce a Tauren's skull. A dip of his shoulder and the arrow deflects off smooth steel plate with a grinding screech of steel on steel. He grunts and swings his hammer again shattering a Forsaken's skull.

Sylvanas arches one immaculate brow and remains where she is. If she committed her bodyguards, committed herself, they might push the Gilneans back into the streets. Bleed them for a little longer. But now she wishes to see what this one is capable of.

If only for her own amusement.

 **((-))**

Ragnar snarls as savagely as the wolves that his god calls his children. Hammer ever in motion and claiming lives as easily as breathing. His muscles burn now with the exertion of his slaughter. The back and forth motion of the weighty weapon his hands wearing down his muscles. The Flames of Ulric burn brightly still. Fueled by his faith while he butchers the Undead. A Worgen yelps in pain and surprise as a raggedly feathered shaft sprouts from his shoulder. The shaggy wolf-man is cut down by a Forsaken's cleaver.

Ragnar avenges him three strokes later. Gilnean Guardsmen sense the growing exhaustion of the Worgen and surge forward to relieve them. The shieldwall pushes the undead back step by step allowing Ragnar to take a brief rest. Setting his flaming hammer to his shoulder he glances around while sucking in full breaths to soothe his burning arms and back. The battle presses on as more and more Gilneans flow in from other streets driving the flagging undead back. But the Bitch on her horse is still there at the heart of a formation of heavily armored corpses. Crimson eyes glowing and judging and locked on his as he takes a break from his slaughter.

The eyes are judging and filled with a hate of everything that lives. Something rivalled only by that held by an ancient Vampire of an even more ancient bloodline in the Old World. He can see in her the same kind of monster that lead the undead of Sylvania to war in the Empire, that nearly toppled the Empire forged by Sigmar and drowned the world in a tide of undeath.

Isabella Von Carstein born again in the body of a she-elf with ridiculously large ears and eyebrows. He sees her arched brow as a challenge. Imaging for a moment how that face would look after suffering the attentions of his hammer.

Then Prince Liam breaks through with a shout of savage fury at odds with his normally reserved and jolly attitude.

" _Sylvanas!"_


	11. Banshee's Anger

Banshee

Prince Liam starts forward, grip tight on his blade and fury burning bright in his eyes. All of it directed at the Banshee Queen. Hatred clouding his mind and judgement. Making him stupid and impulsive. Ragnar recognizes it immediately and lunges forward. His fist clamps down on the Prince's shoulder just in time to stop him from making a suicidal charge.

"No boy, she is beyond you," Ragnar murmurs and presses him back behind the wall of shields presented by the Greymane House Guards. The Prince's men take the hint and drag their prince back despite his shouting to let him go, to let him at the Corpse Bitch.

"He's right about that, Little Prince. But do you think you can handle me?" the undead elf purrs in a voice that would be sultry in any other being. Ragnar huffs and hefts his still burning hammer. His muscles burn with the exertion of the last few hours, but he ignores them. The enemy is before him and no Wolf of Ulric would ever back down.

"We shall see Corpse Bitch."

"Do you know who I am?" she asks with an arched brow. He sees her hands tighten on the grip of her bow; an arrow already fixed to the string. Both sides draw back as if sensing the coming confrontation. Feeling the tension of the air so thick that a knife could not cut it. Ragnar grins ferally and raises his hammer. In one smooth motion, honed through centuries and centuries of practice, Sylvanas brings her bow up. The shaft is drawn back until the fletching touches her cheek and her aim is perfect. Her release flawless.

Ragnar drives his hammer downwards as if driving a spike home. Powerful, smooth, fast. Mana gathers around the hammer's head swift as a rushing river sending a spike of alarm through every mage present. The hammer pounds into the cobblestones like Ulric's fist to the mountain that Middenheim resides upon. It releases all that magic in a single wave that drives straight for the former Ranger General.

Forsaken leap into action all around her bringing their massive iron shields to bear in a wall that would have stopped a hundred charging knights. It does nothing to stop what's coming. Her arrow, the head coated in a poison that has no antidote, is incinerated by the wave of brilliant white flame. The fire roars on crashing against the shields and iron armor of the Forsaken.

Their flesh is incinerated beneath the metal and they collapse leaving the final barrier all that remains between Ulric's flames and Sylvanas herself. Layer after layer of magical barrier springs up. The flames shatter the first three before stopping at last leaving every mage remaining to the Forsaken drained of mana and sagging with inhuman exhaustion. Finally, an emotion other than cold arrogance crosses Sylvanas' fair features.

Shock.

"Feel that?" Ragnar calls through the smoke and the heat. "Feel the flames? See their fury, hear their hunger? Ulric knows you Corpse! He smells your fear!"

"Pull back!" Sylvanas spits, ignoring the truth in the man's words. The Forsaken link together hurriedly. Lesser beings throwing themselves against the encroaching Gilneans to slow them and allow more valuable warriors to escape. Ragnar glares at her retreating back. Every part of his being screams for him to follow to end the threat that she represents before she can lead her forces elsewhere. But he would never reach her. It doesn't take long to clear the remaining Forsaken from the edges of the city leaving the living and truly dead as the only inhabitants.

The worst was yet to come for the recovering Gilneans.

 **((-))**

"Are the catapults ready?" Sylvanas snarls as she slides from the saddle beside a hunched figure. The fury radiating from their dark lady is enough to cow every engineer within sight and nearly drives the object of her furious demand back into the grave. The wretch nods, its jaw long since rotted from its skull leaving it mute.

"Then deploy the weapon!"

Their mistress' words are as if sent from the festering gods of the dark. Engineers crank back arms of petrified wood. Globes of Blight cradled in the hands of the living catapults swirling with green death and suffering. They are launched in a staggered volley. Dozens of the globes flying through the air to land along the edges of the city killing scores of Gilneans and sending them scurrying back over the ground they had just finished bleeding for.

Sylvanas hears their screams of fear and pain as the Blight consumes them whole and leaves nothing but corpses in its wake. In less than a minute the entire outer district of the city is rendered uninhabitable by even her Forsaken. Something like satisfaction flows through her still veins and throbs in her black heart.

"Kill any who escape. Bring me Greymane's head, and that of the man wielding a wolf hammer."

 **((-))**

Ragnar growls and curses under his breath as he drags a man away from the deadly cloud of green that is consuming the outer reaches of the city. A few mad men are flying on winged beasts with stingers at the ends of their tails overhead, saddlebags loaded with explosives meant for the catapults and vats of the poison filling the distant hills and lining the road.

"Mage! Someone get a healer over here! Where is the King?" he bellows as a robed woman he dimly recognizes hurries forward to help the man he was dragging.

"Market square three streets down. And he isn't happy."

Ragnar grunts in reply and stalks off to find the King. Walking wounded and surgeons move every which way trying to stay out of the way of the fit fighting troops as much as possible. The King is a hunched furious form in his heavy coat, one hand resting on his sheathed blade while his eyes glare daggers at his petulant son. Ragnar catches the tail end of the tirade that the King was unleashing on his get.

"…lucky that Ragnar was able to drive that bitch off! Never again son, do you hear me?"

"Yes father."

"King Greymane, what's being done about the corpses in those hills?" Ragnar shouts when it seems safe. The King grunts and gestures to the fliers.

"Only what they can do. We can't get past the Blight and it's going to spread through the whole city. We'll have to get out through the escape tunnels. A few score are already out but I want you with them. Who knows what the Banshee Queen has on the other side eh?"

"Consider it done. Good luck Your Majesty."

 **((-))**

Alera Blackmane sighs in exhaustion as the mana feeding the healing spell fades sealing the wounds of a trio of guardsmen. The hours of fighting have left her more drained than any trial given to her by her masters. And that is saying something.

"Mage!" a familiar, gruff voice barks from across the square. Her tired eyes easily find the hulking form of Ragnar waving her over beside an open cellar. The scowl that leaps to her face is effortless and scathing.

"What do you want barbarian?"

"The King wants us clearing the other side of the escape port. I need a spell chucker."

She will never admit that her teeth grind together just a little bit at the derogatory title. Nor that she stomped towards him childishly while reaching for her last mana potion.

 **((-))**

Sighing heavily Ragnar slumps down on an overturned barrel. His gore smeared armor rattles and creaks in sympathy with his bones while he watches the Gilneans emerge from the tunnel. He can see the familiar heartbreak in their eyes. The dead stares and glazed looks of those who lost their homes. Familiar.

And no less painful for its familiarity. How many times did he see the straggling trains of townsfolk retreating from the forests because the Beastmen were about on rampage or a warband from the north landed and began reaving deeper inland? Too many times to count. He lays his hammer across his legs and sighs again. The King and Prince are shouting encouragement to their people as they emerge. Organizing what supplies they saved from the Blight and taking stock of what troops remain. Exhausted soldiers and matted fur covered Worgen mill about binding wounds or trying to regain their strength.

The wound beneath his plate throbs. A painful reminder of a ghost's touch before his blessed hammer banished it back to the dirt that it came from. The mage healed it with a few whispered words in a language that seemed both harsh and musical. Strangely the thought doesn't make his skin crawl like it should have.

The magic of his homeland is a thing of evil wrangled to the benefit of the Empire and its allies. Just as capable of killing as healing or changing one's flesh as easily as a sculptor molds clay. Another mystery to add to the growing list of puzzles plaguing his mind. His fingers tap a rhythmless tattoo on the head of his hammer. The weapon remains clean of gore unlike the rest of his body. He knows what happened. What the heatless flames meant.

Ulric was _there._ In him and with him driving the Gilneans forward. The cold flames of the Wolf God wreathed his hammer banishing the filth of the wrong back to the shadows where they belong. Another mystery. The Sigmarites have been known to channel their faith through their hammers with a power than none could explain beyond the Heldenhammer himself acting through his faithful.

"Heck of a day wasn't it," a tired Prince Liam sighs as he takes a seat on a cracked crate.

His blonde hair is tangled and matted with blood much how his fine vestments are ruined with the viscera of battle. His eyes are bloodshot and have heavy bags already hanging. Only will power is keeping the younger man going through the madness and despair of a people in decline. Eventually Ragnar responds with a simple grunt.

"Aye." Liam eyes him sidelong and eventually decides that is all he's getting from the tired man.

"Show some respect barbarian, he's a Prince," Alera comments from her position laid out in the wagon where their seats came from. The exhausted mage was instrumental in dealing with the lingering spirits in the graveyard and as such endured the most strain. Her mana reserves are bone dry and her body is close to forcing her into a comatose state to recover it. Or at least that's what another mage said in passing when he asked for them to look in on her as a thanks for healing his wounds.

"I think he knows that already spell chucker," Ragnar retorts tiredly and rubs a gauntleted hand down his face, grimacing at the feeling of the blood drying in his beard and hair. Always a pain to work out after a fight. Liam chuckles softly with an edge of exhaustion.

"Go…jump in an ogre den or something…too tired to insult. Come back tomorrow."

"You two are perfect for each other."

"You're in range of my hammer Prince. Don't think I won't give you a lump to remember me by."

"But all the tension…"

"You'll make me gag Prince," Alera chimes in. The warning in her tone is unmistakable.

"Perhaps it is not wise to antagonize the woman who can turn you into a sheep with the wave of a hand?" James Redcloak chimes in cautiously from the back of another wagon. A length of white bandages is wrapped around his left arm and shoulder. Blood is already beginning to seep through the fresh cloth.

Ragnar shrugs and pats his hammer's head as if it were a faithful hound at his side. A low muttering begins to spread through the lines of Gilneans. Ragnar pushes to his feet with a groan as a shouting voice approaches. The crowds swiftly become agitated and panicked voices rise towards the head of the column. A rider approaches his steed foaming at the mouth and heavily lathered.

His words sends a bolt of righteous fury through the Templar.

"Orcs! Orcs to the fore! Every fighter to the fore!"

 **((-))**

Sylvanas stares down on the Blight covered city from the grassy knoll. The grass is dead and grey rotting in her presence. None dare to approach the brooding Banshee Queen. Her crimson eyes burn with a mad rage, fingers gripping her bow tightly with unliving strength. The Gilneans escaped her forces. Their parting shots destroyed several of her Blight catapults and scores of her troops before fleeing like rats from a sinking ship.

A small army escaped from under her nose likely heading for safety even now. Her troops move through the city hunting for riches and survivors knowing that they will find none. Failure is bitter on her tongue.

The burning rage turns to the wild haired warrior in black plate. Whatever power he wields is to blame for her failure to kill either the Prince or the King. If it weren't for him the Gilnean King would have been broken and maddened by the death of his whelp. If it weren't for him Gilneas would have been a shattered kingdom instead of merely a nation of refugees. Her forces would have swelled with the number of fresh corpses created by the Blight and the blades of her troops.

Now, with thousands of losses and only a few new soldiers, her army is shrunk even further than before. A rare case of a strategic victory and tactical defeat. The Horde has its port…but their enemy managed to slip free to fight again somewhere else. A snarl curls at her delicate lips and she growls.

And it is all. His. _Fault._

There will be a reckoning, her wrath swift and terrible. She will tear down everything that he holds dear and skin his loved ones before his very eyes. She will keep him as a pet in her darkest dungeon to be brought out only when her chemists need a live test subject to tests a new agony inducing concoction.

"Soon I will have you under my knives…"

 **((-))**

Ragnar fuels his strikes with the burning fury inherent in every man of the Empire's heart at the sight of the hated Greenskins. Even here, though changed like this strange new world's Elves, they stand against the advancement of humanity and civilization. His hammer pummels their flesh and crushes their bones with every swing. His fury given voice through his howled oaths and quotes from the many holy texts of the Old World voicing their hatred of the Greenskins.

His armor would be little use against their strikes, Orcs being much stronger than the average man on a bad day, so he uses his skill. Batting aside strikes that he would normally take on his armor or slipping aside before lashing out with his hammer. The small port where the Night Elves were awaiting the Gilneans in their retreat support the small force of forest elementals and Gilnean soldiers with precise fire from glaive launchers and their archers.

None bare steel against the savages harassing the lines of retreating refugees beyond their arrows and strange blade throwers. A brutal axe screams for his skull and is sidestepped before the hammer drives forward and caves the massive Greenskin's ribs in. The beast gives a choked cough before Ragnar brings his hammer around again to crush its skull into so many fragments.

"Forward men of Gilneas! For your homes and your families! Fight for Ulric Worgen! Glory to Gilneas and Ulric!" Ragnar bellows and drives forward at the tip of a wedge of guardsmen and angry Worgen now wielding axes and hammers taken from the dead Greenskins to great effect. The groaning elementals stomp into the midst of the skirmishing Orcs without fear, crushing them beneath their massive feet or squishing them with equally massive hands. Whatever coordinated strike the small army might have had planned was quickly shattered by the arrival of giant walking trees and a very angry Templar.

The scared and tired townsfolk flee onto the elegant Night Elf ships moored alongside the rickety old pier in straggling lines of hunched figures. Parents clutch their children close with a desperate intensity. Ragnar smashes down a pair of Orcs wielding axes and raises his hammer like a battle standard rallying his troops around him in a wall of steel and fur.

"Here is where we hold them! Here is where you earn the right to call yourselves warriors! Not one step back!"

The Gilneans roar their fury locking their shields together in a wall around him while Worgen merely snort and heft their weapons. Ragnar clutches the haft of his hammer in his gauntleted fists and grins savagely, battle-lust singing through his veins. The wolf's head of the hammer bursts into the white flames of Ulric once more. Heatless fire glinting from the blood coating his plate and reflecting from his eyes.

A score of Orcs gather their nerves and wits enough to make a concerted push to break the lines. The massive humanoids slam into the thin line of Gilneans and find no give. Axes and swords plunder flesh and cleave limbs from bodies with reckless abandon. Ragnar howls and swings his hammer in great flaming arcs. Every blow pulverizing and scorching flesh and bone black with the fury of his ancient ancestors. Thousands of years of hatred and grudges igniting around the head of his hammer.

The Orcs shrink back in shock and fear. None are eager to feel his hammer's bite. Bodies pile about his feet as a man-made barricade of flesh. His hammer swings and swings and swings until there is nothing for it to hit anymore. The Orcs having broken or died. His shoulders heave heavily with every breath under his plate. An explosion thunders over the water where the Orc airship once loomed menacingly. Hunting horns blow signaling the retreat back to the boats as the last of the refugees board. Ragnar leads the rearguard glaring daggers at the Orcs all the while.

King Greymane watches the Templar as the lines are cast off. He can feel the hatred rolling off the wild-haired warrior like physical heat. He lays a hand on one steel covered shoulder.

"We'll get our revenge friend. Never you fear, we will have revenge."

 **((-))**

 **A/N: I'm going to end this part of the story here. There will be a part two because I didn't feel comfortable stretching this thing out however many hundreds of thousands of words that the entire story will end up being all under one tab. This is not me criticizing others on the site this is me practicing for when I eventually write my own book.**


End file.
